THE “NEW AGE” AND EASIER LIFE

 (THE ELIMINATION OF “SACRIFICE”)

            According to Religion, the purpose for using simplified rites and vernacular languages, as they were introduced in the new liturgy of the Sacrifice, was to make it more intelligible to Men of today.

            Nevertheless, one can easily realize that understanding the Sacrifice and the Death of the Bridegroom ultimately is tantamount to understanding the Bridegroom. Conversely, to consider that it is impossible or perhaps very difficult, to perceive the meaning of the Sacrificial Act equally implies thinking that knowing the Bridegroom is out of the reach of human understanding.

            It was here where the anguish of the bride reached its zenith. Indeed, according to what has been said above, and adhering to the obvious meaning of the concepts and words used, making the Sacrifice intelligible to the Men of today evidently signifies making it more accessible to their mentality. In other words –but meaning the same thing—, it signifies the intention of putting the Sacrifice within the reach of Man’s reason; that is, within the measure and according to the capacity of his intellect.

            The bride had heard about the early centuries of Christianity when Men, bewildered by the doctrines of Aryanism, similarly tried to understand the Bridegroom; but to understand Him in a human way, for such was the nature of the error the Christians of those times fell into.

            Hence, the dejection and pain of the bride.

             Today, even within Religion itself and inside its own Circles, they try to understand the Bridegroom according to the finite and limited measure of human understanding only. Whoever has eyes and wants to see will perceive that the old Aryan heresy maintains its vitality and has become modern. Nobody can deny that now, even within the most influential Circles within Religion, they usually draw a line of separation between the Bridegroom of the Books of His Chronicles, on the one hand, and the Bridegroom as He was imagined by the first generation of His followers, on the other.

            Hence the cause for the grief of the bride: could there be some connection between the better understanding of the Sacrifice –which now has been adapted and placed within the reach of the mentality of the Men of today—and the putting the Bridegroom on a level with, or perhaps reducing Him to, the capacity of human reason?

            Therefore, they who see her cry should not judge the bride wrongly. She loves the Bridegroom, not so much because He is God or because He is Man, but for the simple and plain reason that He is He. For he who loves always looks at and contemplates a Person. It is true that the bride rejoices in the divine character of her Bridegroom as well as in His human condition; but above all and most particularly, she gives Him her Love because He is He, her Bridegroom. She knows that if, per chance, the Bridegroom were dispossessed from His divine or perhaps His human character, He would no longer be He because He would no longer be the same Person she is in love with. We must say it again: Love being eminently personal (in Its origin and in Its object), he who loves always tends toward the beloved Person because this person is precisely this person and no other. That is why the bride does not love the Bridegroom mainly because He is God, or for the transcendental circumstance that He has become Man; she loves Him simply and plainly because He is He. It goes without saying that if this Person Whom she loves were not God, or perhaps were not Man, He could no longer possibly be the Bridegroom for whom her heart yearns.

            In addition to this, in the bride’s eyes the Bridegroom is wonderful. She uses this word because, although she is aware of its total insignificance, she does not find another term which could sing better her feelings. What words could be used to describe the Beauty and the Goodness of a Humanity which is translucent to His Divinity? Or to describe a Divinity which becomes transparent –to the extent that it is possible—through the charm and the seduction of His Humanity? How can anyone think that human language can reflect the image of a God who is contemplated, at the same time, as true Man? How can one outline the features of a Man in Whom one perceives Ineffable and Marvelous Divinity? And the bride could go on talking, ad infinitum, of the Beauty, the Goodness, the Tenderness, the Affection and Love, the Intimacy and Loving Self-Giving, the Integrity, the Purity, the Truth, the Grace, the Honesty, the Courage, the Light, the Joy…; and of anything that could somehow show Infinite Beauty as being one with Infinite Goodness. But the bride would end up realizing that, after all, she is very far from being able to express what she perceives in the Bridegroom.

            How could anybody have thought that the Bridegroom could be described by merely human reason, so as to be understood by everyone? Has Man believed himself to be so big and, at the same time, has Man imagined the Bridegroom to be so ridiculously small? Indeed, what seemed incredible has happened: somebody has accepted the possibility of reducing and minimizing the Bridegroom…to the extent of making Him able to be grasped and apprehended by the capacity of this wretched creature that Man is. How did it become possible to imagine that one could explain in a better and more intelligible manner, without resorting to other means, what it means that such a Person assumed, freely and out of Love for Men, His death on the Cross?

            That is why the beloved bride believes herself unable to describe her Bridegroom when people ask her about Him. Therefore, in the midst of the longing for infinitude of her human heart, she resorts to the last resources available to her: the metaphor and all the other figures of speech that Poetry utilizes; she thus wants to say it all…knowing that she can barely express anything:

                        What makes your lover better than other lovers,

                        O loveliest of women?

                        My love is fresh and ruddy,

                        To be known among ten thousand.

                        His head is golden, purest gold,

                        His locks are palm fronds

                        And black as the raven.

                        His eyes are like doves

                        Beside the water-courses…[1]