Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread

Abstract

Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread Sister Maria of the Angels O.P. “Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep.” Thus begins an ancient homily used all over the world in the liturgy for Holy Saturday. This year these words have a particular poignancy. Something strange is happening. Churches all over the world are sunk in the unprecedented silence of suspended public worship. Here in this monastery, although the usual silence continues to be punctuated by common worship, there is still a greater silence. The computer that was left on in order to receive updates on a relative afflicted with Covid-19 has been turned off. The message had arrived early on Good Friday—“the tubes on the ventilator became clogged and his wonderful heart stopped.” Other names of victims of “the virus” appear one by one on the board outside the chapel. The nuns’ choir and the public chapel are almost completely dark. Together we sit in the shadow of death, the death of the Lord and so many others all over the world. The altar is stripped, the tabernacle empty, no sanctuary lamp, no exposition candles burning. We sit in a dark silence before Matins begins. The first streaks of dawn gradually appear and slowly light fills the air. One is reminded of the original Fiat Lux! and made bold to question the darkness. Why? How? How long? Pope Francis, in his March 27 Urbi et Orbi message,1 stated that the current crisis has exposed the illusion that “we would stay healthy in a world that was sick” and that the present moment “is a time to get our lives back on [End Page 1237] track.” Often the best way to get “back on track” is to retrace one’s steps and return to the beginning. This year, in a unique way, we are invited to return to the very beginning when “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness,”2 brought into being all that exists. This was an act of profound generosity and, at the same time, baffling simplicity. God had no need to create and was in no way changed by his creation of all things out of nothing.3 Why then did God create? Simply for the manifestation of his own goodness and the sharing of his own inner life of uncreated happiness with created persons. The one God, who is three divine persons, is the causa et ratio of the coming forth from and return of all creation to God.4 The goodness that is manifested by the created world and into which it is drawn is the goodness of the divine Trinitarian life. Put differently, God created, out of nothing, everything that is and with himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as the exemplar or model as well as the final goal.5 The existence of every created reality, with the Creator himself as the pattern [End Page 1238] and end of all things, is a relational existence. Everything that exists is the recipient of a particular form and dynamism to its proper end. When it exists according to this form and dynamism, it flourishes and gives glory to its Maker. Reflecting upon these origins offers us the surest way of resetting our lives in a conversion that goes all the way down. Everything that exists has come forth from the mind of God. Only a return to the truth of real things and gaining a renewed perception of the way things are intended to correspond to the wise design of God can make possible a true reorientation of our lives. Variety, Hierarchy, Mediation Although God is one, simple, and immutable,6 the world he created is, by design, varied, hierarchically ordered, and possessed of an inbuilt tendency of movement toward completion. As Saint Thomas says: The distinction and multitude of things comes from the intention of the first agent, who is God. For He brought things into being in order that His goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented...