Your Mass and Your Life

In God's plan, it is not man who is the center of the universe, but Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word. God created all things for Christ. For the sake of Christ Jesus in whom the Father already had "placed all His delight" and for the sake of Mary, His Mother, "full of grace," God decided to create man and the universe.

To this Son, in whom He is well pleased, friends were to be given--and so man was created. (The race of man represents the "friends of the Bridegroom" mentioned by our Lord in the Gospel.) To this Son whom He loves, the Father will give a house and a garden--and so the universe was created. Man, created for Christ, is loved in Him. We thus form, as it were, a "wedding gift" from God the Father to Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom.

In Him, through Him, and for Him, we are pleasing to the heavenly Father. Without Him we are nothing. This is very important for an understanding of the Mass. Our sacrifices are of value only through their being united with Christ's Sacrifice. Since all have issued from the heart of God solely to give pleasure to Jesus, all then are brothers. Creation itself is our kin. The universe and I, what are we, if not a delicate thought of the Father toward His Divine Son?

The creation, launched into existence by God's loving power, will forever have something unfinished about it, until that time when it shall return to the Source of its perfection; there to receive from that same Source its final perfection and beatitude. Thus the general plan of creation appears to us as an image and prolongation of the fecundity of the Most Blessed Trinity. The chronological order of the plan is as follows: (1) Creation of the heavens; (2) Preparation of the earth; (3) Creation of minerals, vegetation, and animals; (4) Creation of man.

King though he may be of that creation predating his own existence, man, however, is not creation's final goal.

Man--simple link in a chain that must go back to God--paves the way for the coming of the blessed Virgin Mary. Mary, God's jewel case, in which reposed He Who upholds all things, Jesus Christ! Christ is the center of the universe. He is before all things: "He is before all creatures" (Col 1:17). "The firstborn of every creature" (Col 1:15). "In the beginning was the Word..." (Jn 1:1).

"In Him...through Him...unto Him...all things!" (Col 1:16,17)