God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say 'seeing'? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is 'host' who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and 'take advantage of' Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves. - The Four Loves.
I did this to him. He died for me--and for every other sinner, every other fallen Son of Adam and Daughter of Eve. He died for us all, suffered, was crucified...cried. What price the tears of God? He cried for the world, the whole world, not just the poor, but for the rich; not just for the good, but also for the bad; not for the well, but for the sick--and when we realize he cried for us all, we realize there are none of us who are well.
Save she who could give him some consolation, towards the end--save for his Mother, who was preserved from the primordial disease by the sacrifice of her Son. She--the one fair thing in a sea of sin and misery, in a landscape cluttered with dragons rearing and roaring, of fire belching forth and pain--she, the Lady Fair, icon of all the saints of heaven, icon of redeemed humanity and restored creation for her Son to gaze on that day, to love and, loving, love us all back to life. The sacrifice for the ungrateful--not in vain! For she was there, she, the first fruits of the redemption brought by her son. She, the reward for such suffering, such sacrifice. She--it was worth it for her. It was worth it for her, and then for us all.
Us all--all. Hitler and Stalin, Mao and Lenin, you and I, every man, woman, and child. The lost and alone, the lonely and friendless, the socialite in her salon and the lord in his manor--he came to save us all. Every murderer, everyone stricken with envy, every rapist, everyone guilty of a lie, everyone--every sinner, no matter how far fallen, no matter how lightly sinning. He came for us all, came to save us all.
C. S. Lewis, again:
...There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell...
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