“A mere intellectual grasp of the faith is not enough!” said my friend. While I agree with that in principle I wonder why should that be applied to me so indignantly.
So, someone thinks my faith is in my head and only there. Although I doubt it, that may be true. But then, why the indignation? Why not correct the wayward with kindness? The Pharisees had a similar problem with Jesus. They thought he was at fault somehow, they question his doctrine but their motivations were not clean and their indignation gave them away. In time, their bad motives moved them to commit the greatest crime. They vanished from history after that.
The indignation of Jesus’ enemies reveals the origin of their anger. That anger is prefigured by the envy of Cain. There is something very revealing in Cain’s name. The literal meaning is “fashioned, formed, created” from the Hebrew word Qayim. But the ancient Hebrew spelling strongly suggests qina. The word reached Spanish as inquina [aversion, ill will] through the Mozarab or perhaps directly from Hebrew. Qina means “envy” and it is close to our word cane. An old joke makes use of that similarity: “Why are Adam and Eve the oldest sugar planters? Because they were the first to raise Cain.” A very appropriate play of words: canes are light in weight, empty, and deadly when the end is sharpened to a point. I am sure that sharpened canes were among the first weapons of mankind. Similarly there is a sort of vanity in envy, a sort of emptiness that mimics the inner part of a cane. Just like a cane, envy darts fast, sharp, and deadly from the innermost parts of the soul.
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More or less at the same time, I was conversing with a more agreeable most talented friend, someone whose insights have often inspired many good posts in the past. I do not remember why I read him one of Bl. Ana Catarina Emmerich’s visions. It had to do with the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt when they encountered a group of thieves. Emmerich relates that the thieves took Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus to a cave. There they were supernaturally struck with awe and the wife of the Chief Thief offered Mary a basin with fresh water to wash the baby. The poor woman had a baby of her own that had been struck with leprosy. After washing little Jesus, Mary instructed the poor mother to use the water left over to wash the sick baby. That resulted in the instant, miraculous cure of the infant. The boy’s name was Dimas whom we also know as the Good Thief who entered Paradise the day of the Crucifixion. This is what my good friend wrote:
I agree with that idea of the Logos “projecting”, or perhaps “emanating” order as a sort of involuntary act since all His being is in perfect consonance with ordered creation. Remember the case of Mark 5:25-34 and how Luke adds in Luke 8:46:
But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
That also seems to happen in the calming of the storm. The astonished disciples add: “the wind and the sea obey Him!” Creation in order is Creation in obedience to Logos. Now think of this: in the present disordered state of the Church, wouldn’t it be natural to expect an increase of disorder in the world over which the Church is supposed to reign? Wouldn’t all that evil torture the mystical body of Christ in a form of replay of the Passion that is the Passion of the Church?
This certainly deserves to be studied in depth. I always thought the suffering of Christ in Calvary is actually Him “touching” or entering into direct contact with the suffering part of creation and forcing His Divine Goodness to enter disordered creation. If I am right, it was at that moment that the world began to heal from the wound of original sin.
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After His Resurrection, Christ appears to Mary Magdalene as a gardener thus pointing at Him being the first fruits of this re-creation of the damaged world.
Now, comparing the Redemption by Christ with the Fall of Adam, we can glean a few things. What initiated the fall was the envy of the satan touching mankind through Eve. The devil envied his Creator and found no better way to hurt God than to cast doubts about the genuineness of His creatures’ love for Him. That first sin of envy was generously reverted by Christ on the Cross. Divine love defeated envy when His Precious Body touched the Cross of envy and hate. Later in the garden by the empty tomb, he allowed the Magdalen to encounter Him and cling to His body in a holy reflection of the moment when the devil touched the heart of Eve with the poisoned darts of envy. In that act darkness and hate began to be defeated forever.
