IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME

A MESSAGE FOR SEPTUAGESIMA

It’s up to us to be good for all those who aren’t.  But how good can we be?  Can we ever be good enough?  When God created man, he began by making Light.  “Let there be light,” pronounced the Word of God, “and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.”  The light was good, but it wasn’t good enough.  God hadn’t finished.  He created the light to prepare a place for man to live.  The creation of light, as I’ve explained before, caused the creation of space and time—space for light to illuminate, and time for light to move through, in which causes may have effects.  But light alone was not enough for man to exist, and so this was only the first of six days of creation, as God continued to come up with all the other things necessary for a man to live.  

And just as light was not good enough, the same can be said for everything else God created. The sun and the moon, the mountains, and trees, and birds of the air and fishes of the sea, the vast assortment of animals, none of this was good enough.  None of it was sufficient for God.  He wanted something better, and all these creatures had been created for this new creature that would be better.  It would be a creature of free will, who would love God not from instinct but because his reason and will would love Him freely.  And so, finally, on the sixth day of the week, God created Man. And you know what really hurts?  Man was not good enough either!

Man was supposed to be God’s supreme creation, the one who would share God’s love in an eternal union of goodness.  But man bit into the forbidden fruit, the only law God gave him.  He failed the test!  God saw Adam and Eve, that they were good—but they weren’t good enough!

And so as soon as that first “original” sin had been committed, a plan was put into action that would redeem this “man who wasn’t good enough”.  God foresaw the entire history of the Old Testament and knew what would be the most propitious and appropriate time for this Redemption to take place.  The Bible tells us it happened “in the fullness of time.”  Church history books offer various reasons why God chose the time of the Roman Empire to be that “fullness of time” in which he would send his only-begotten Son to save us from sin—there was universal peace in the world, the world was united in language, policy, commerce, and so on, making it easier for the Gospel to be spread to every corner of the Empire.

But there’s another reason why God chose to redeem us at that specific “fullness of time”.  He waited until exactly the right moment, a moment when a certain young lady of Nazareth would be conceived without original sin, would be born, and would finally achieve her child-bearing years. Only now would the time be right. Only now, when this young lady would say the word “Fiat”, let it be done unto me according to thy word, would the “fullness of time” be achieved.  And this young lady, Mary, would be, in all truth, God’s greatest creation, his supreme creature.  God prepared her for the role of Mother of his Son, by granting her the privilege of being conceived without original sin.  She alone amongst all mankind would not inherit Eve’s stain of disobedience, and would join with her Son as Co-Redemptrix, in restoring man to his primeval innocence through the graces that flowed from her Son’s Precious Blood directly into our souls at Baptism.  And God saw this Lady Conceived Without Sin, that she was good.  And finally, here was a creature that was “good enough!”

Shrovetide begins today.  Our prayers should flow in abundance to this Lady Conceived Without Sin, without whom our Redemption would never have taken place.  Prayers of thanks for our creation and redemption, and prayers of supplication that we may follow her perfect example as perfectly as we possibly can, freely offering our own will, our penances and sacrifices, in reparation for mankind’s ingratitude to her divine Son and His Father in heaven.