“This is the theological foundation of the holy
Patriarch’s greatness as virginal, messianic father of the Only-begotten of the
Father: shadow and transparent icon of Him who wished to make Joseph unique
partaker of his fatherhood in order to prepare the human nature of Christ for
the holocaust of Calvary”.
Today
is the feast-day of Saint Joseph
October 8, 2012 by Jonathan Fleischmann
When Mary was predestined in one and the same
decree with
Jesus Christ by the design of God—before the
creation of angels or
the universe, and before the existence of sin or
evil—she was predestined to be the Spouse of the Holy Spirit … to hold within
herself
all the love of creation.
Love’s Mechanics
In the return of all created things to God the Father (cf. Jn 1, 1; 16,
28), “the equal and contrary reaction,” says St. Maximilian Kolbe, “proceeds
inversely from that of creation.” In creation, the saint goes on to say,
the action of God “proceeds from the Father through the Son and the Spirit,
while in the return, by means of the Spirit, the Son becomes incarnate in (the
Virgin Mary’s) womb and through Him, love returns to the Father.” ….
The Saint of Auschwitz goes on:
In the union of the Holy Spirit with her, not only does love bind these
two beings, but the first of them (the Holy Spirit) is all the love of the Most
Holy Trinity, while the second (the Blessed Virgin Mary) is all the love of
creation, and thus in that union heaven is joined to earth, the whole heaven
with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created
love: this is the vertex of love. ….
Love’s Equilibrium
The form of the diagram shown in Figure 1 is not found in the work of
St. Maximilian.
Figure 1: The return of all created things to God the
Father.
However, it accurately represents the state of equal and opposite action
and reaction, that occurs when two bodies make contact. In this case, the
“bodies” represent heaven and earth: the uncreated and created orders,
God and his creation. The first point I would like to make is that the
state of equal and opposite contact forces in Newtonian mechanics requires
“force equilibrium.” It may then seem very wrong to use an image like
this one, because how can the state shown between God and his creation be in
equilibrium? Isn’t God’s act of love so much greater than the return of
his creation that no “equilibrium” would be possible? This would
certainly be the case if it were not for Emmanuel, that is, God with us.
Jesus, who is truly man, and truly God, belongs to both the created and
uncreated orders simultaneously. In his person, Jesus is both the son of
Mary, fully human and like us in all ways except sin, and the Eternal Son of
God the Father, infinite and equal in all ways to the Triune God.
....
Thus, the love of Jesus, the Word Made Flesh who is God, is by itself
enough to “balance” the love of God. However, there is even more in the
equation of love’s equilibrium than the love of the Son, infinite and
sufficient in itself, though it is. According to St. Maximilian, the
perfect love of the Trinity meets an adequate response in the
perfect love of the Immaculate, which is the name St. Maximilian gives to the
Blessed Virgin Mary.
How is it possible that Divine Love can find an adequate response in the
love of a creature? It is possible precisely because of the name that the
Virgin Mary can claim for herself. In 1854, the Blessed Virgin Mary
proclaimed to St. Bernadette Soubirous: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
In the words of St. Maximilian, the Blessed Virgin is the created Immaculate
Conception, as in the words of St. Bonaventure, the Holy Spirit is the uncreated Immaculate
Conception. ….
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the Son, as the perfect
and infinite love between the Father and the Son in the eternal interior life
of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, the Holy Spirit is truly all the
love of the Most Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit is also called the
“Complement” of the Blessed Trinity, because he is the completion of the
Trinity, not in “number” (quantitatively), but in essence (qualitatively).
When Mary was predestined in one and the same decree with Jesus Christ … by
the design of God—before the creation of angels or the universe, and before the
existence of sin or evil—she was predestined to be the Spouse of the Holy
Spirit.
So she was predestined to hold within herself all the love of
creation. Thus, St. Maximilian says that the Blessed Virgin Mary
“inserted into the love of the Most Holy Trinity becomes, from the very first
moment of her existence, always, forever, the Complement of the Most
Holy Trinity.” We may paraphrase the thoughts of St. Maximilian Kolbe
on the spousal relationship between the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Virgin
Mary, in the words of Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner:
In virtue of this spousal union formally denoted by the title,
Complement, Mary is able to enter, as no other, into the order of the
hypostatic union, her soul being wholly divinized, because by the grace of the
Immaculate Conception, it has been ‘transubstantiated’ into the Holy
Spirit. ….
It is for this reason that Mary—though she is a creature in both her
person and her nature—is herself the created Immaculate Conception, and,
therefore, all the love of creation. She can actually provide
an adequate response to the love of the Holy Spirit, who is
the uncreated Immaculate Conception, and, therefore, all the Love of
God. Thus, the equation of love’s equilibrium is balanced again.
Now that we have balanced the equation of love’s equilibrium twice over,
we could certainly stop. However, there is reason to continue. St.
Maximilian does not expressly mention St. Joseph in the context of these
reflections.
However, the diagram in Figure 1, based entirely on the saint’s own
reflections, certainly suggests the presence of St. Joseph in the order of the
response of creation to God the Father. The order of Father, Son, and,
Holy Spirit, shown in the diagram, reflects the order of God’s loving act of
creation.
This was initiated by the zeal of the Father, designed by the wisdom of
the Son, and effected by the action of the Holy Spirit. This is the order
referred to by St. Maximilian when he says that: “the equal and contrary
reaction (i.e., the return of all creation to God) proceeds inversely from that
of creation.” We see this reflection in the diagram, where the reaction
“force” of love is inverted, and the order of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as
the “action force,” is reversed to give the order of Holy Spirit, Son, and
Father.
Notice, however, that in the return to God, it is creation that
is reacting. Thus, the individuals reacting—while reflecting the Holy Spirit,
Son, and Father to greater or lesser degrees—are all creatures.
We have Mary, who is the perfect similitude (St. Bonaventure), transparent icon
(St. Maximilian), or even quasi-incarnation (St. Maximilian)
of the Holy Spirit, but who is still a created person, with a created human
nature. We have Jesus, who is the Word Incarnate, the same Person as
the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, but who is still in possession of a
created human nature. St. Maximilian stops here, but must we stop
here? I would dare to say that the analogy we have carried out so far on
the inspiration of St. Maximilian suggests an obvious completion. We have
St. Joseph, who has been called the “perfect icon of God the Father” by
more than one saint. …. In the words of Fr. Joachin Ferrer Arellano:
In the light of the Scotistic thesis on the Primacy of Christ, to take
one example, one discovers (…) how the virginal marriage of Mary and Joseph was
predestined “ante mundi constitutionem” (before the constitution of the world),
as an essential part of the one decree of the Incarnation of the Word in the
womb of the Immaculate “ante praevisa merita” (before any consideration of
antecedent merit). Such is the saving plan, “the mystery hidden before the
ages in God,” (cf. Eph 3:9) to be accomplished at the high point in the history
of salvation. That high point is the fullness of time (cf. Gal 4:4) when
God sent his Son into the most pure bosom of Holy Mary Ever Virgin, espoused to
a man of the house of David (cf. Lk 1:26) in fulfillment of the prophecy of
Nathan.
God acted thus, that through the obedience of the Spouses of Nazareth
the Son might be freely welcomed into history on behalf of all mankind in order
to save it. This welcome took place in the virginal womb of Mary, the Daughter
of Zion, and in the house of Joseph, in the family home established by the
marriage of the two Spouses (Mary and Joseph), “sanctuary of love and cradle of
life.”
This is the theological foundation of the holy Patriarch’s greatness as
virginal, messianic father of the Only-begotten of the Father: shadow and
transparent icon of Him who wished to make Joseph unique partaker of his
fatherhood in order to prepare the human nature of Christ for the holocaust of
Calvary. In this way, He made Joseph Father and Lord of
the Church gushing forth from Christ’s opened side and born of the sword of
sorrow of the Woman. ….
In addition to being the transparent icon of God the Father, St. Joseph
was the true, virginal husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. ….
In fact, it can even be said that St. Joseph is the virginal father of Jesus
Christ. For, again in the words of Fr. Joachin Ferrer Arellano:
Although singular, unique, and not univocal with fatherhood as this is
ordinarily understood and commonly found among men, the position more
common and traditional among theologians upholds the truly
real fatherhood of Joseph in relation to Jesus, based 1) on his marriage to
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and 2) on the right of the husband over his wife.
He, therefore, who is born virginally of Mary, by reason of his birth,
intimately pertains in some manner to Joseph as father. … In view of
the dignity of Joseph as husband of Mary, to whom belongs the fruit of his
wife’s womb, one is not permitted to overlook … how the indivisible
virginity of both spouses—not simply that of Mary, but also that of
her husband, the son of David—is ordered to the virginal fatherhood of
Joseph according to the Spirit, in virtue of the obedience of faith to the
saving plan of God. This plan includes the messianic fatherhood of
Joseph as son of David in relation to his virginal Son, constituted Son of
David, the messianic King, because He was Son of Joseph. ….
In the return of all created things to God the Father, it is under the
leadership, and in imitation of, St. Joseph, our patriarch, that the individual
members of the Church must, by the merits gained for us through the redemptive
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, be transubstantiated
into Mary, who is the Virgo Ecclesia Facta (Virgin-Made-Church). ….
It is only by being transubstantiated into Mary, the created Immaculate
Conception, that we can be united to God as she is uniquely united to God,
being transubstantiated with her into the uncreated Immaculate Conception, who
is the Holy Spirit. In virtue of this transubstantiation, we are possessed
by the Immaculate, and we are thereby formed into a single community, or
Church, sharing her personality. To St. Maximilian, this is the only way
that we can be members of Christ’s Church, and thereby united to God.
….
Taken from: http://www.hprweb.com/2012/10/the-vertex-of-love/
