The Unmaking of All Life

[Image: Easter Springtide ~ Vitali Linitsky]

The central mystery of the Mass has been at all times the subject of dream and speculation, of theology and devotion. If it is the centre of Christian life, it is also and therefore, the centre of all life -- anyhow on this planet, and perhaps everywhere. For the mystery of the Redemption -- of which this is the sign and means -- lies close to the mystery of Creation.

The Sacrifice of the Crucifixion was the unmaking of all life that it should be remade after the great original pattern; a deliberate unmaking instead of an inevitable decay. So far as chaos could come again upon a world in which God was immanent, so far in that darkness it came; wounding and overwhelming the Sacred Body, inclosing and darkening the Sacred Spirit within. It is the nature of Omnipotence always to be able to endure more and to go farther than the utmost that can be brought against him; and perhaps this is the nature of the last Judgement, that He leaves to every man the choice of dealings with Him. If a man will shape his life upon a basis of pride and anger, then he shall find a greater pride and anger in God; if he is covetous and robs others, God shall be covetous and rob him; if he is full of love, then God shall be full of love.

The Mass is an invisible communication, not only of redemption but also of creation and judgement: it is an absorption of the communicant in his degree into eternity. It is therefore above all things the relation between his own soul and Love with which the lover is concerned; and though he passes into the mystery by the channels which Love has prepared, Love itself issues therefrom in all his terrible strength along the channels which the lover has prepared.

Charles Williams ~ Outlines of Romantic Theology
Apocryphile Press, 2005 (Berkley, California)