He Who Creates What He Is
“What is man that You should exalt him, That You should set Your heart upon him…”
As I ponder what it means to love, this verse from Job is extremely potent. Indeed, there is something mysterious about man because he is not only kept in being by a Father who calls him “very good,” but by One who invites him to create as his own person. As God established the world through a breath of Love, it would seem that man is called to create, in a communion like the First, precisely this.
Love makes the world go around. This is not just a song (which is subpar at best) but a metaphysical reality into what it means to be, and to be in creation. God spoke life into being and keeps it in being through the extension of Himself, which is Love. The sacramentality of creation sings only of this. Such is why St Thomas Aquinas says, “Where there is love, there is vision.” We must learn, and then relearn, to see creation as it truly is. In the smallest of flowers, in the simplicity of wings, they are all held by One Hand - Love. “For Christ plays in ten thousand places. Lovely in eyes and lovely in limbs not his, To the Father through the features of men’s faces” (As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Gerard Manley Hopkins). While all creation moves about from this resemblance, Christ spoke man into being through the breath of life. He enabled us, because He loved us, to live in the reality of our creation: to live in Love, by Love, and for Love.
One of the most beautiful mysteries of our Catholic faith is that Christ calls us to participate in His redemptive love. In one of my favorite books, The Wreath by Sigrid Undset, she describes a burning church that the main characters were supposed to be married in; that their love was supposed to protect. However, while the Church burns because of their sins, the priest and the bride’s father run inside. The priest runs to the hosts, kisses them, and brings them safely out. Her father runs to the cross, places it upon his own back, and guards it from the flames. Through this image, Undest argues that the Church will be saved in three ways: by those who kiss the host, by those who carry the cross, and by those who fall in love. The beautiful reality of God lies precisely here: that by fulfilling a vocation, such as to holiness and marriage, one actually gets to redeem the Church and the world. Such is why we are called to a vocation. It is in living this vocation that we not only come to see the reality of Love that made us, but we have a part in creating with It.
In my favorite novel Island of the World by Michael O’Brien, he writes: “We came to know that love is the soul of the world, through its body bleeds, and we must learn to bleed with it.” Human love is an experience of the deepest reality of creation: of the breath of life, of God’s creative power, and of the suffering of the cross. While no human love is the same, it is all one under these. Couples partake in Love in a profound way, breathing the very breath of life back into the world as God first did. They are not passive bystanders. Instead, they dance vigorously on a spiral, secured by vows so that they will not fall, but vigorous nevertheless. Atop the spiral, the world must look up. As it does, it sees man, the only creature God willed for itself, with another, dancing to the rhythm of being.
As couples prepare to make vows, they are building something even waves cannot quench. Indeed, their love will become a ripple in the cosmos. Although not known by the world, never for a moment insignificant. Once put in motion, there it will always be, their love: moving, creating, shifting the sand.
“We were here,” it will forever sing, “We were here.”
