On the Redemptive Power of Jesus Christ

More great stuff from the writings of Blessed Columba Marmion; this time on the saving power of Christ:

Sin is an insult given to God, an insult that has to be expiated. Man, being simply a creature, is by himself incapable of paying off properly the debt contracted against the Divine Majesty by an offence, the malice of which is infinite. A satisfaction, to be adequate, must be offered by someone of the same dignity as the one offended. The gravity of an insult is in proportion to the dignity of the one offended; the same insult given to a prince is more serious because of his rank than if it had been given to a peasant***… Now, between us and God there is an infinite gap… You know what God’s answer has been… He decreed that the ransom of humanity would only be brought about by the satisfaction equal to the rights of his infinite justice, and that this satisfaction would be given by the bloody sacrifice of a victim who would substitute himself freely, voluntarily, for sinful mankind. Who would this Saviour be?...

… God sent the promised Saviour, the Saviour who was to ransom creation, destroy sin and reconcile mankind with God. Who was it who would come? It was the Son of God made man… This solution is a wonderful one. ‘The humanity of Christ,’ says St. Gregory, ‘permitted him to die and to satisfy for men; his divinity gave him the power to restore us to the grace that sanctifies.’ Death had come from a human nature soiled by sin. From a human nature united to one who is God, would spring forth the source of grace and of life.

***‘Sin committed against God has an infinite quality because of the infinity of the Divine Majesty, for an offence is greater to the extent that the one transgressed against is greater’. St. Thomas Aquinas – ST III, q.1

On being a son of God

At the minute I am reading the wonderful theological and spiritual classic by Blessed Columba Marmion: Christ, the Life of the Soul. Marmion could be described as one who strongly promotes and emphasises the fact that we are adopted sons and daughters of God in and through the only Son of God – Jesus Christ. His writings are full of great spiritual gems. Below you will find some of them. I will add more as I find them.

By nature, God has only one Son. By love, He will have a multitude of them, without number. This is the grace of supernatural adoption.

The Father pre-destined us to be adopted… through Jesus Christ (cf. Ephesians 1:5). We are sons, like Jesus – we by title of grace, He by nature. He is Son, and we are sons: He, the Father’s own Son, and we, adopted sons. But He saves, while we are saved.

Christ is not only holy in Himself, He is our holiness. All the holiness that God has destined for souls has been deposited in the humanity of Christ, and this is the source from which we must draw.

God has chosen me – chosen us – to be raised infinitely above my natural condition, to enjoy eternally His own beatitude, to be the realisation of one of His Divine thoughts, to be one voice in the concert of the elect, to be one of those brethren who are like Jesus, and who share, without end, His celestial inheritance.

Every one of the elect is the fruit of the blood of Jesus and of the wonderful operations of His grace.

We shall be pleasing to the Eternal Father – and is not the very basis of holiness to be pleasing to God? – only if He recognises in us the features of His Son. Through grace and our virtues, we ought to be so identified with Christ, that the Father, gazing on our souls, may recognise us as His true children, may take pleasure in that, as He did in contemplating Christ Jesus on earth.

Marmion on Death

This is a little word of advice from Blessed Columba Marmion on how we should treasure each day and end each night with a good examination of conscience. He is speaking to priests, but it can equally apply to everyone:

“When evening comes, never lie down to rest without the intimate conviction that you are ready to appear before God.”