The night
of Christmas Eve had fallen at last, and all that remained was to sleep until
Christmas morning. As I slept, I dreamt. It has haunted me since, the terrible
nightmare of that night, the very image of death placed before my mind’s eye.
Here is something like that vision in sleep:
I looked
before me into a dark prison cell, poorly furnished, dimly lit by a torch on
the wall. Several people sat there, their clothes torn and ragged. One of them,
I noticed, was a priest. He was conversing with those around him.
“Father,” said one young woman
sitting on the floor, “do you think it will be long before they come for us?”
“No. They never take long. It has
already been some time since they took Nicolas and the others up before
that crowd,” he replied.
“Let’s hear more, then, of the good
news that might have been. If we are about to die for this lie then let us
listen to it, as beautiful and terrible as it is.”
“I cannot say ‘do not despair’, for
that would be false hope indeed. You would have me retell our story, our
fantasy. This little angelic lie of ours, upon which we have built all our
false hope. Before we find ourselves helpless before the judgement seat of God,
you want a rehearsal of the lie we plan to tell him. The present sent from God
that was more of a bad joke, though one still surpassing all the joys of the
world. Alright, one last time, I will present the story.
God did
create the world, making it beautiful and good. He then made Man, and from him
Woman to dwell in Eden with him. He gave them one command, not to eat of the
Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. One day, the serpent came, tempting them to eat of the tree.
This serpent was Satan himself, the first great rebel, who had been the highest of
the angels of heaven before he, though seeing as with sight God
himself, choose to try to elevate himself above even God, choose to rebel. By
this choice of his, evil had entered the world. He used that freedom of will that God had
given him as an instrument of Love as an instrument of destruction. And when he
entered the garden he taught our first parents to do the same. And so Eve first
and then Adam ate of the tree, and the whole human race descended from them has been corrupted
by the corrupted will inherited from them. And yet, God promised that
from the seed of Eve would arise one who would crush the serpent’s head, a
savior for the world.
Several
generations later, to preserve the full humanity of the savior who was to come
so that he might be human enough to provide salvation for those who were human,
God sent a flood upon the earth to remove the attempt by angels to set up a
false gospel in their own flesh, to stop the blood of angels from tainting
mankind. God preserved the human race, renewing the promise that had been given
to Eve of a descendent who would crush the serpent and save us.
Later, to
Abraham, he gave the promise that the blessing of the world would arrive
through his own progeny. Such was Abraham’s faith upon mount Moriah that he was
willing to sacrifice the child through whom this salvation was to be brought
when it was commanded by God, knowing by faith that God would fulfill his
promise and not require Isaac. God preserved Isaac. How great a trust Abraham
had, that he would trust a promise so much that he would even obey the maker of
that promise when he was commanded to destroy it.
Later, a
promise was made to King David that the long-promised savior would be among his
descendants. Thus a line from Jesse was never destroyed, despite the centuries
of rebellion against God by the kings of Israel and Judah, despite even the
exile to Babylon. One of David’s descendents would be the one to crush the serpent.
In an even
later age, it was revealed to a man named Simeon that he would not see death
before the long promised salvation would appear. It was the prepared time,
immovable, in which God’s promise to our first parents, to Noah, to Abraham, to
David, and to Simeon would be brought into the world, or else not at all.
An angel
was sent to a woman whose name is now accursed, a descendent of David, to tell
her that she was to be the mother of the one who would save the people from
their sins. The revelation that has since been revealed to us by the testimony
of angels tells us what would have happened. She would have given birth to the
child, to be named Jesus, one fully God and fully Man. He would have lived a life without
sin, freely choosing by his will to obey God in all he did. The people would
have taken him, brought him before the authorities with false accusations, and
had him crucified. He would have risen on the third day, bringing salvation to
the world, defeating sin and death. He would have given all men a new choice:
an offer of salvation that could have brought men before the judgement of God
freed from their sin. The Spirit of God would have been sent, to guide the
followers of the God-Man into all truth, to bring a visible community through
the centuries back to God, with a holy priesthood that would perform a holy
meal of remembrance, in which the very Body and Blood of the savior, as present
in bread and wine, was to be eaten, bringing salvation to his followers.
This is the
great might-have-been in which we place all our hope. It is what God promised
from the beginning. We place our trust in the One who might have been, but for
her choice.
For the
angel came to her, and announced this salvation by which she and the world
might be saved. How beautiful and wonderful a thing it would have been had she
said “Let these things be.” How wonderful it would have been had
she freely willed to share in the divine plan of salvation, as Eve, Noah,
Abraham, and David had before her. Then we might all have been happy.
Instead,
she rejected it. She cursed the angel, saying ‘May this thing never come
to pass, I will do what I will rather than what is willed for me.’ The angel
departed, mourning the destruction of the world. She departed from that house,
prostituted herself to a Roman soldier, and shortly thereafter was stoned to
death when Joseph brought this to the attention of the authorities. O unnamable
one, full of damnation, you denied the Lord. Cursed are you among all women,
and through you he who would have saved the world was withheld. This is the
curse we pray against her constantly.
We are
left, given this second great fall, more terrible by infinite magnitudes than
the fall of Eve, without the resurrection of the Savior, without which our
faith is in vain. We are named the Counterfactualists, for we trust in what
might have happened, in the salvation that would have been offered through the
savior. Not that there is any real hope, not really. That which has not
happened simply has not happened. God was so insistent upon the freedom of the
will needed for Love that he has allowed the damnation of the world. We will
stand before him, trusting in his promise, despite its failure. And if then we
perish, we perish.”
He,
concluding his story, began to serve the mass. He took bread and wine, and
blessed them. They would have been the Body and Blood of Christ, if Christ had either Body or Blood. He had heard their
confessions earlier, offering what would have been a pardon for sin had any sin
been pardonable. And then they sat, waiting in silence, for their death.
The guards
came, taking them from the cell up into the light of the arena above. There
they were tied to crosses, in terrible imitation of what they wished would have
happened. The crowd, looking on, laughed at them, shouting “Let your fairy tale
save you now, which you yourselves admit to be a lie.” They, upon their
crosses, dying slowly, sang a hymn cursing she who had committed the great apostasy.
And then at last they gave up their spirits, descending where they must in the absence of a savior.
At this, I
awoke, trembling at the horror of the world I had just witnessed. I remembered
the truth, rather than the dark nightmare. Mary had indeed said unto the angel “Let these things be.” Christ had been born, and this new day was
the very celebration of that affirmation.
For on that
day, long ago, in Bethlehem, Christ had been born of the holy Virgin Mary. In
fulfillment of the promises of God from the time of the fall of man, it had
happened, at the time when God had orchestrated it to happen. He died and rose again, keeping our faith from being in vain. He
established his Church, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
But then I
remembered the terrible existence of those in hell. Here are those who, despite
the reality of the offer of salvation, deny it through the corrupted use of
their will, doing to themselves what Mary might have done to the whole human
race. Blessed are the Counterfactualists compared with them, for the
Counterfactualists’ hope was still in Christ, even though there wasn’t any
Christ to have hope in. How terrible is the freedom required for Love, that it can even
contradict the desire of God himself that all should be saved.
Christ was
born, and all will be well: that was the simple truth of the matter. The truth
of salvation, celebrated on this day, was beautiful, more beautiful than
anything else in the world. I prayed and sang, celebrating the Amen that had
been given to the angel’s proclamation.
“Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.”
Amen.”
