“No passion; no proof. No proof; no persuasion. No persuasion; no paradise.”
“The most Holy Trinity let us impale the Son of God on the sharp hook of salvation while He was human, alive, tender and vulnerable. We impaled Him with the same insouciance as the fisherman who impales a live worm on a sharp hook. Then, the most Holy Trinity cast Him as bait into the cesspools of sin to fish for the children of Adam and Eve. Despite our impalement of Him, and, for reasons known only to God, the most Holy Trinity continued to love us nonetheless. They never stopped loving us. The indestructibility of God’s love for us is the bait. Calvary took place to persuade us that we have no power to extinguish God’s love for us or to reduce it by even the slightest degree. The dial that controls God’s love for us is in God’s hands and not ours. Furthermore, it is set to the highest degree and is locked in place. All we need do is take the bait and God will reel us in.”
“Look at what God did for us at Calvary. If they did Calvary for us, then there is nothing that God won’t do for us! Keep your expectations high. Keep your hopes up.”
“Calvary revealed to us the indestructibility of God’s love for us. It is the sweetness of paradise. It pull us back to our home with God in paradise as honey pulls the bees back to the hive.”
“If Calvary does not persuade the children of Adam and Eve, nothing can or will”
God wanted to persuade us that they love us. They gave us the gift of life, the gift of a home in paradise in which to live it and the gift of a spouse with which to share and enjoy it. Lovers give gifts to their beloved. After the debacle of Eden, they sent subordinates to convince us that they still loved us. However, we did not believe them. So God decided to do the job of persuading us themselves. Moreover, they would persuade us in the most persuasive way possible even though this meant that they would "get their hands dirty". To convince us that they loved us they would pay an exorbitant price out of their own pockets. The price they would pay to persuade us would be exorbitant because it would not come out of their limitless divine resources - that would be easy for them - but from their limited human resources. The Son of God would pay it all for us. He would not keep a penny for himself. God has never paid more for anything else.
The Son of God paid us a visit for approximately thirty-three years at and about the city of Jerusalem in a region of the earth called the Middle East more than two thousand years ago. He pitched his tent among us. He rubbed elbows with us.
At Bethlehem, God sent us a love note. It was no ordinary love note. It was the word of God and it lived and breathed. The love note was alive.
The love note of Bethlehem, however, was not the only "document" that God sent us.
The debacle of Eden taught God about our reluctance to take God at their word. Their word is not good enough for us. We require more than the word of God. Thankfully, our merciful God accommodated us as God always does. We did not accommodate God. God accommodated us. Didn't He let Thomas stick his fingers into his wounds?
Therefore, at Calvary, God gave us the second "document" that corroborated the love note.
At Calvary, God gave us a guarantee that the love note was genuine. If the love note were counterfeit, God's love for us would have faded as we tortured Him and died when we killed Him. But it did not. It survived. The survival of God's love for us is the guarantee that God put into our hands that the love note is genuine. Calvary extinguishes all doubts about the indestructibility of God's love for us. God's love for us is not fickle. God's love for us does not run hot and cold. God's love for us is steadfast. Calvary is the proof that the dial that regulates God's love for us is in God's hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and is locked in place.
There would not have been a guarantee without Calvary. For the guarantee to work, the Son of God had to cling to His love for us, hold tight and not let go while we immersed Him in the evil baptism of Calvary. The Son of God's refusal to let go of His love for us is the proof of its intransigence - its indestructibility. We gave Him every reason to let go, yet he refused to surrender His love for us. He surrendered his body. He surrendered his blood. He surrendered his very life itself. But He refused to yield to us His love for us. It was precious to Him - too precious to let us extinguish it or reduce it by even the slightest degree.
The coin of Calvary has two sides. Clinging to his love for us is one side of the coin of Calvary. Suffering in the evil baptism into which we immersed him is the other side of the coin of Calvary. Many only see the suffering side of Calvary. They stop at the bloody wounds we opened in the Son of God. They do not look through the bloody wounds. The bloody wounds, however, are windows that allow us to see the other side of Calvary. We must look through them not stop at them. When we look through the bloody wounds, we see the most sacred heart of Jesus. Buckets of blood spilled through the wounds we opened but not a drop - not a drop - of his love for us. Throughout the evil baptism into which we immersed him, his sacred heart stayed filled to the brim with love for us.
Why did God pay the exorbitant cost to give us a guarantee of the indestructibility of His love for us at Calvary?
To God, we are the pearl of great price. To God, we are the treasure buried in the field. To God, we are the apple of his eye. To God, we are worth it. But, isn't God overvaluing us a wee bit much? We are not worthy. Yet, God thinks we are. And it is God's opinion that counts not ours.
Because God's love survived the evil baptism into which we immersed him, we possess an indestructible guarantee that God loves us. The guarantee is the sweetness of paradise. The guarantee is the good news of great joy. Christ continued to love us nonetheless despite the evil baptism into which we immersed Him to induce us to exclaim, "How do we sign up? Where do we enlist? How do we join the kingdom of this God who loves us so much?" Calvary is the engine that pulls us back to our home with God in paradise as honey pulls bees back to the hive. Rational people seek the sweetness of paradise (and flee the sourness of godlessness). God is of the opinion that our rationality will cause us to come back to our home in paradise with Him.
There is more and better theology in Calvary than in the head of every apologist, theologian, Doctor of the Church, monk, abbot, mystic, priest, monsignor, bishop, Cardinal, Pope, hermit and saint who has ever lived or will ever live.
“Calvary is a self-portrait. Hence it is the perfect representation of the nature of God. All other representations of the nature of God are counterfeit or fall short of perfect fidelity and, thus, must yield to the self-portrait that the brush of truth painted on the canvas of Calvary in the pigments of pain and suffering.”
“The Mass is the rainbow of the new covenant that reminds God and us of Calvary.”
“The approach of God is through our rationality not through our obedience. God bypassed our faculty of obedience. The debacle of Adam and Eve demonstrated that our faculty of obedience is unreliable. Furthermore, the debacle demonstrated that our rationality worked. The serpent conjured up the illusion that a life lived as gods in godlessness is superior to a life lived with God in paradise. The serpent offered Adam and Eve what seemed like a better deal. Their naive rationality acted on the seemingly better offer. The serpent, however, was a liar and the offer was bogus. Garbage in; garbage out. Faulty data caused our rationality to lead us astray. Godlessness is not superior to paradise. In fact, it is vastly inferior. Therefore, to rescue us from godlessness and to return us to our home in paradise, God feeds our rationality the truth about godlessness and the truth about paradise. Fed with the truth, our rationality tells us to flee the sourness of godlessness and seek the sweetness of paradise. The prodigal son fled the pigsty for his father’s house and so do we. The truth sets us free.”
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