Essay on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism/Book 1/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
Catholicism is Love.
There exists the same difference between the Catholic Church and the other societies spread throughout the world, as between natural and supernatural conceptions, and as between the human and the divine.
The pagan world considered society and the city as identical. For the Roman, society was Rome; and for the Athenian, it was Athens. Outside of Athens and of Rome were only a barbarous and rude people, who were coarse and unpolished, and unsocial by nature. Christianity not only revealed human society to man, but also another society, much higher and more excellent, whose immensity has neither bounds nor limits, whose citizens are the saints who triumph in heaven, the just who suffer in purgatory, and the Christians who combat on the earth.
If we carefully investigate the records of history, and meditate upon them, we shall discover with amazement that this gigantic conception cannot be explained by anything we find there recorded. It made its appearance alone, unexpectedly, and without antecedents. It came as a supernatural revelation, communicated to man supernaturally. The world received it at once, and without having perceived its coming; when it was seen, it was already come, when it was recognized at a glance, and as by inspiration. Who but God, who is love, could teach those who combat here, that they are in communion with those who suffer in purgatory, and those who triumph in heaven? Who but God could unite in loving bonds the living and the dead, the just, saints, and sinners? Who but God could connect oceans so immense?
The law of unity and of variety, that law by excellence which is both human and divine, without which nothing can be explained, and which explains all things, is here shown to us in one of its most surprising manifestations. Diversity exists in heaven, since the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three persons; and this diversity is merged, without confusion, into unity; because the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and God is one. Diversity existed in the terrestrial paradise, because Adam and Eve were different persons; and this diversity is merged, without being blended, into unity, because Adam and Eve represent human nature, and human nature is one. In our Lord Jesus Christ there is diversity, because there is a conjunction of the divine nature on the one hand and the corporal and spiritual elements of his human nature on the other. The human and divine natures are merged, without being confounded, in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is only one in person. Finally, diversity also exists in the Church, because she is militant on earth, suffering in purgatory, and triumphant in heaven; and this diversity is merged, without being confounded, in our Lord Jesus Christ, the sole head of the universal Church; and who, as the only Son of the Father, is, like the Father, the symbol of a diversity of persons in a unity of essence: as he is also, in quality of God-man, the symbol of a diversity of essence in a unity of person; and, being at the same time God-man and the Son of God, he is the symbol of all possible diversities and of infinite unity.
As supreme harmony consists in this, that the unity, out of which all diversity arises, and into which all diversity resolves itself, should be identical with itself in all its manifestations, it follows that it is always in virtue of one and the same law that diversity resolves itself into unity. The diversity of the Holy Trinity becomes one through love. Human diversity, composed of the father, the mother, and the son, becomes one through love. The human and divine natures become one, in our Lord Jesus Christ, through the incarnation of the Word in the womb of the Virgin, which is a mystery of love. The Church militant, the Church suffering, and the Church triumphant are one in our Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of Christians in heaven, whose petitions descend as a beneficent dew upon those who combat; and, through the prayers of the Church militant, whose efficacy falls like a revivifying shower upon those who suffer, for perfect prayer is the ecstasy of love. "God is charity; and he that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him." If God is charity, then charity is the infinite unity, because God is infinite unity. If he who has charity is in God, and God in him, then God may descend even unto man through charity, and man may ascend even unto God through charity; and all this, without confusion, and in such a manner that neither God, made man, loses his divine nature, nor man, made God, loses his human nature, man always remaining man, although he is God, and God always God, although he is man. All this is accomplished by means exclusively supernatural, that is, by means exclusively divine.
All nations have had some comprehension of this greatest of all Catholic dogmas; as they have possessed a knowledge more or less correct, more or less complete, of other Catholic dogmas. In every zone, in all ages, and among every human race, an immortal belief has been preserved of a future transformation, which will be so radical and supreme that it will forever unite the creature to the Creator, the human to the divine nature. Even in the paradisiacal era, the enemy of mankind spoke to our first parents of their being gods. Since the prevarication and the fall, this wonderful tradition. has everywhere been prevalent, and every scholar will find traces of its existence in all theologies, however slight may be his investigations. The difference between the pure dogma, as preserved in Catholic theology, and the dogma as corrupted by human traditions, is in the manner in which this supreme transformation and sovereign end is attained. The angel of darkness did not deceive our first parents, when he affirmed that they would become as gods. The fraud consisted in hiding from them the supernatural way of love, and revealing to them the natural way of disobedience. The error committed by pagan theologians was not in asserting that humanity ought to be elevated to a union with God, but their error consisted in having considered the divine and human natures as nearly identical; while Catholicism regards them as essentially distinct and arrives at unity through the supernatural deification of man. This pagan superstition is manifest in the divine honors paid to the earth, as the immortal and prolific mother of the gods; and likewise in the worship of various creatures, whom they confounded with their gods. Lastly, the difference between Pantheism and Catholicism is not, that the one affirms and the other denies the deification of man, but that Pantheism asserts that man is God in virtue of his own nature; while Christianity teaches that man may become as God, supernaturally, through grace. Pantheism teaches that man, a part of the being which is God, is completely absorbed by the being of which he forms a part; while Catholicism teaches that man, even after being deified, that is to say, penetrated with the divine essence, yet preserves inviolate the individuality of his own existence. The respect which God has for human individuality, or what is the same thing, for the free will of man, which is what constitutes his absolute and inviolable individuality, is so great, according to Catholic dogma, that God has been willing to divide with it the direction of all human associations, which are governed both by the freedom of man and by the divine counsel. Love is in its nature fruitful, and because it is fruitful, it engenders diversity without impairing its own unity; and because it is love, it resolves all things into one, without blending them. Love is, then, infinite variety and infinite unity. It is the sole law, the highest rule, the only way, the last end. Catholicism is love, because God is love. Only he who loves is Catholic, and only the Catholic learns the true nature of love, because he alone receives what he knows through supernatural and divine means.