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The Will, the Tree and the Gift from Heaven

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by Stephen R. Le Blanc

 

            In every age, men seek heroes.  The classic hero confronts a difficult situation, sees it as a challenge and conducts himself in virtue to bring about success.  A helpless victim is saved and disaster is averted.  Often the stakes are mortal and the payoff significant if his mission is successfull.  It is important that we look to the saints as heros and draw lessons from their lives.  In our Catholic faith, we recognize many saintly examples but none is finer than the example given by Christ Himself.  Let us take a closer look at the challenge and mission of Christ.  What was the primary challenge that Jesus Christ encountered?  He encountered the challenge of redeeming fallen man from sin and punishment.  As we examine this fact, we see that man had fallen by disobeying the express wishes of God.  He ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  This terrible action resulted in man being excluded from heaven and condemned to hell for all eternity.  In His Love, God Wished all men to be saved, so he came to offer us another way.  His purpose was to "reverse the curse" as it were.  A masterstroke was required; the fruit had to be restored to the tree. 

 

         


  In His tremendous Creative Wisdom, Almighty God Accomplished this by assuming the life of man and perfectly following the Will of God the Father.  What a simple but mysterious solution!  We can see that Christ Himself was the new fruit to be restored to the tree.  The cross became the new tree that Christ mounted to fulfill the Divine plan of Redemption.  Now things get more interesting!  What other similarities can we find?  I suggest that even as man's will was flawed at the time of the original fall, Christ's Will was perfect in restoring man to grace.  This is not a far leap of logic.  In order to fulfill God's great gift of salvation, which is over and above what we deserve, the curse had to be perfectly undone and overridden.  A perfect man had to walk unblemished through life; the reversal of man's error would require that he be offered by a priest in sacrifice to God the Father.  Oh, and all this would need to happen on a tree.  In human terms, this seems absurd.  Fruit and Trees?  Get real!  Against all odds, our Hero Jesus Christ succeeded in this most urgent mission! 

 

            Since He lived and spoke the unvarnished truth it came to pass that sinful man rejected Him and wished him crucified.  In a manner of speaking, God saved us by utilizing our sinful tendency for His loving purpose.  The crucifixion had to happen.  What terror strikes the heart at this brutal statement!  What Love God has for man!  Why was it required?  It was required so that sin could be conquered and the Eucharist  given to mankind.  The world is a passing reality and mankind needs a lasting remedy.  Pain and suffering were not avoided, but accepted and even embraced by Christ.  Jesus, with His perfect Will, desired to be placed on the cross so that He could offer his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to His Father in Heaven.  The great Transaction would thus be accomplished and the price of sin paid.  Love and innocence were exchanged for sin.  Now we have accounted for nearly all the pieces:  1.)  the tree has been replaced with the cross,  2.)  the fruit was replaced by the flesh of Christ Himself,  3.)  the pride and disobedience of man / woman was replaced by the humility and obedience of Christ and the Blessed Virgin,  4.)  the man who did not wish to sacrifice was replaced by the High Priest who dearly longed to offer sacrifice.  In summary, hell was replaced by Heaven. 

 

            This leaves out one key piece:  what act of the will would replace the eating of the forbidden fruit?  What would replace this outrageous action?  God left this to us when He instituted the Holy Eucharist and the most holy sacrifice of the mass.  The eating of the forbidden fruit was replaced by the eating of the flesh and blood of Christ.  We are to worthily receive and "eat the fruit of the Blessed Virgin's womb" which is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ found truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament.  We join in Almighty God's saving plan by uniting out wills and actions with Christ's when we worthily receive holy communion.  This is the consistent teaching of our Holy Mother the Church and our ticket to Heaven.  We are given the honor of replacing bad will and hatred with good will and love.  We are given the opportunity to follow the magnificent example of our heroic leader.  As Lent approaches, we ought to seek frequent communion with Our Lord to fulfill His Plan.  As difficult as it may seem in the midst of human weakness it is critical that we take this high road with our wills.  The latin word for will is "voluntas", from which we derive the word "voluntary."  Our Wise Master leaves the last act to us.  This is part of the essential genius of God's plan to save us.   Through the proper disposition of our will, God has left us a blessed inheritance and it is up to us to receive this supernatural fortune by following Him.  May we all seek to follow Jesus Christ, our heroic leader in self-sacrifice, as we journey through Lent in 2008.  We need the supernatural graces that are available from frequent communion to properly confront the challenges of the devil, the flesh and the world.  In the immemorial words of Our Savior, "Do this in memory of me."


Stephen Le Blanc is originally from Boston, MA and is an alumni
of the Villanova University School of Business (1995) and spent
2005-2007 studying and praying with the Priestly Fraternity of
St. Peter in Nebraska.  Stephen attends the sacraments
zealously; this includes the holy sacrifice of the mass daily
and the weekly Traditional Mass at Mary Immaculate of Lourdes
in Newton, MA. He currently trains servers for the Latin mass
and is pursuing a serious career search in finance, education
or writing in the Boston or Cleveland area. This  is Stephen's first
venture into publishing and any credit for his work goes to
Almighty God. He can be reached at sleblanc73@gmail.com.

Posted by staff on February 3, 2008 3:04 PM |

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