In what became an international best-seller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope, St. John Paul II summarized Original Sin as “above all” an attempt “to abolish fatherhood”. When Adam and Eve seized the apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they didn’t just disobey, but epically failed to see that God in His fatherly love was offering everything they would ever need or want as a pure gift. Instead of receiving the gift they attempted to appropriate it for themselves. They wanted to “be like God” on their own terms and not as beneficiaries of the Divine Goodness. That Satan tempted them to do so should not be all that surprising because these are the same conditions under which he too fell. Rather than receive the gift from God, he decided he would grasp his greatness as his own. Satan would “be like God”, but only on his own terms.
There is a flip side of this that can easily be overlooked but is something worthy of deeper reflection. The abolition of fatherhood really comes about not by outright denial of it, but through a usurpation of sonship. Lucifer was not so foolish as to think he could somehow eclipse God. Instead he thought he could eclipse the Son by usurping His throne and ruling with God. Lucifer’s transition to Satan was when he identified himself as only begotten son and not creature. Thinking that equality with God was something to be grasped (c.f. Phil 2:6) rather than received, he, according to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, tried to “usurp a similitude with the Most High that was the Son’s by right.”
“You are My Beloved Son…”
Sonship, St. Paul’s great ode to the humility of Christ tells us, is not something that can be grasped but something that the Son must share with us. Even the Son Himself does not grasp His Sonship but receives it from the Father. And all that belongs to Him as Son, He gives to us by way of participation. The Son did not shed His humanity when He ascended on high but instead took it with Him to affirm that mankind was made for this.
Notice that I didn’t say that the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us simply to redeem us. That He did, but to stop there is to confuse the means with the end. God redeems us so that He can give Himself to us. This is a recurring theme in Scripture, but nowhere does it shine forth more brightly than in St. Paul’s canticle to marriage in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33). In it, the Apostle to the Gentiles draws an analogy between the marital relationship of man and woman with Christ’s relationship to the Church. Marriage is a Sacrament precisely because this analogy is real.
But St. John Paul II says that we can actually illuminate Christ’s relationship with the Church by looking at marriage (see Theology of the Body, 18 August 1982). In other words, he suggests that we reverse the analogy by closely examining the spousal imagery. The Divine Bridegroom wishes to remove every imperfection in his spouse by cleansing her in the “bath of water with the word” so that she is without spot or wrinkle or any blemish (Eph. 5:26-27). This nuptial bath is an obvious allusion to Baptism, but that is just the beginning. What the Bridegroom really wants is his bride to be spotless, so that He who is also spotless can unite with her in a one flesh communion (Eph 5:30-32).
The Great Mystery
Within marriage the gift that the spouses give to each other is first and foremost themselves—“I take you…” So too with Christ. In Baptism, He claims each one of us for Himself and says “I take you…” Yes, He gifts us with the fruits of redemption, but the real Gift is Himself. As John Paul II puts it in one of his addresses from the Theology of the Body “In him, We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses…’ (Eph 1:7). In this manner men who through faith accept the gift offered to them in Christ, really become participants in the eternal mystery, even though it works in them under the veil of faith. According to the Letter to the Ephesians 5:21-33, this supernatural conferring of the fruits of redemption accomplished by Christ acquires the character of a spousal donation of Christ himself to the Church, similar to the spousal relationship between husband and wife. Therefore, not only the fruits of redemption are a gift, but above all, Christ himself is a gift. He gives himself to the Church as to his spouse” (15 September 1982). It seems as if the Saintly Pontiff, despite his Thomistic roots, thinks that the Incarnation would have happened even if man had no sinned. God, for all eternity, planned to become one flesh with mankind.
If we take this theme and shine its light on the Parable of the Prodigal Son then we can begin to examine our own relationship to this truth. The younger son wants to appropriate his sonship and take his father’s gifts by fiat. But when “he comes to his senses” and returns contritely to the father, he bestows the gifts of sonship on him. The older son on the other hand also rejects his sonship. He is simply looking for his father to provide for his needs, like those who go to God only for redemption. That is non-trivial of course, but to stop there is to never see the generosity of the father who says “everything I have is yours.” It is servile rather than filial.
If divine sonship cannot be grasped but only received then we ought to dedicate this Advent to meditating upon this truth. We should study the life of Our Lord and learn from Him so that we might take our place with Him upon His throne. If we truly are sons in the Son, then we need to act like it. Likewise we would do well to prepare ourselves for His second coming when He will initiate the Wedding Feast of the Lamb by allowing Him to cleanse us of every spot and blemish. Light your lamps and go out and meet Him! “Jesus is the reason for the season” indeed.