How good to ponder God’s Love manifested in His saints! Even after Adam sinned, God loved us and sought us. The Old Testament reveals Christ in the Psalms and as we are seeing in the Book of Wisdom. The New Testament reveals the fulfillment of God’s Love in Jesus through Mary, and His Church. St. Louis de Montfort, like every saint, shows us what God gave him , and we do well to ponder, continuing chap 3 in “The Love of Eternal Wisdom”:
Man’s entire being was bright without shadow, beautiful without blemish, pure without stain, perfectly proportioned without deformity, flaw, or imperfection. His mind, gifted with the light of wisdom, understood perfectly both Creator and creature. The grace of God was in his soul making him innocent and pleasing to the most High God. His body was endowed with immortality. He had the pure love of God in his heart without any fear of death, for he loved God ceaselessly, without wavering and purely for God himself. In short, man was so godlike, so absorbed and rapt in God that he had no unruly passions to subdue and no enemies to overcome. Such was the generosity shown to man by eternal Wisdom and such was the happiness that man enjoyed in his state of innocence.
But, alas, the vessel of the Godhead was shattered into a thousand pieces. This beautiful star fell from the skies. This brilliant sun lost its light. Man sinned, and by his sin lost his wisdom, his innocence, his beauty, his immortality. In a word, he lost all the good things he was given and found himself burdened with a host of evils. His mind was darkened and impaired. His heart turned cold towards the God he no longer loved. His sin-stained soul resembled Satan himself. The passions were in disorder; he was no longer master of himself. His only companions are the devils who have made him their slave and their abode. Even creatures have risen up in warfare against him. In a single instant, man became the slave of demons, the object of God’s anger (Cf. Eph. 2:3), the prey of the powers of hell. He became so hideous in his own sight that he hid himself for shame. He was cursed and condemned to death. He was driven from the earthly paradise and excluded from heaven. With no hope of future happiness, he was doomed to eke out a pitiable life upon an earth under curse (cf. Gen. 3:10; 17:23; 4:11,12). He would eventually die like a criminal and after death, together with all his posterity, share the devil’s damnation in body and soul. Such was the frightful calamity which befell man when he sinned. Such was the well-deserved sentence God in his justice pronounced against him.
Ah but, we know this is not the end of the story – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful. Kindle in us the Fire of your Love! Jesus we trust in You! Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
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