Conclusion
At the heart of theology is the mystery of charity: within the Trinity, and then in the economy of salvation. “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8), God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Consequently, all of His decrees are decrees of love and all of His actions are acts of love. The Most Holy Trinity, who is an eternal, loving communion of three Divine Persons in one Divine Essence, freely willed to communicate His love to a created nature outside Himself. He willed to do this in the most perfect way possible, namely by the union of the created, human nature of Christ with the divine nature in the Person of Word.
Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is therefore the first one predestined to grace and glory in the mind of God. Here is His Masterpiece! Here is the Incarnate Word who is most perfectly glorified and exalted by the Most Holy Trinity as King of all creation! Here is the Lord Jesus who most perfectly glorifies, adores and loves the Triune Godhead!
Christ, then, because He is predestined to grace and glory for His own sake, is not “occasioned” by anything. Rather, if anything exists outside of God it exists precisely for Christ. All things fall under His headship as the sovereign King of the universe. And our King has an absolute primacy which is not contingent upon man’s need for redemption.
In the divine intention God chose that the Eternal Word assume His human nature by being “born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). As a result, the Blessed Virgin Mary is predestined as the Mother of the Incarnate Word in the same decree that predestines Christ. She too is predestined absolutely as the universal Queen and Mother; she too has primacy over all creation—a subordinate primacy inseparable from that of Christ.
This means that God, before creating the universe, first foresees Christ the King and His Mother, the Queen. “Before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4) God predestines Them. He foreordains that They be perfectly glorified by His divine love and foresees that They will respond perfectly to that love. This reality is symbolized by the fire blazing forth from the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary—two Hearts burning with love for the one true God.
God further wills to create angels and men that they might be “holy and without blemish in His sight” (Eph 1:4). This is accomplished in and through Jesus and Mary, “to the praise of His glory” (Eph 1:12). Thus He predestines the angels and elect to grace and glory in Christ. Jesus Christ and His Immaculate Mother are at the center of the divine plan from all eternity. They are the Mediator and Mediatrix of grace and glory to angels and men. Indeed all creatures exist for the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and find blessings therein.
Jesus and His Immaculate Mother are, therefore, the manifestation of God’s love towards His creatures. “In this has the love of God been shown in our case, that God has sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we may live through Him” (1 Jn 4:9). The Incarnation is first and foremost a manifestation of God’s elevating love. God predestines us to be His adopted children in Christ, the Son of Mary; God divinizes us, that is, makes us sharers in His divine life through Jesus and Mary. With the Sacred Hearts placed by divine decree at the center of God’s creative plan from all eternity, we are filled with wonder and gratitude at the loving designs of our Creator.
While this plan is fixed and remains substantially the same independently of any consideration of sin, the fact is that Adam and Eve—created to prefigure Christ and Mary and to be blessed in Them—disobeyed God’s law and fell. God, foreseeing Adam’s fall, willed also the remedy to our sin: redemption.
Here is where all the thomists and scotists unite: on blood-stained Calvary. After the fall, all graces—both the elevating grace of deification and the redeeming grace of reconciliation with God—flow from the Pierced Hearts of the Redeemer and Coredemptrix. And this Redeemer renews His sacrifice of love at every Holy Mass in an unbloody manner! Jesus Christ crucified and risen, with His Divine Mother at His side, is at the center of the universe and of our lives in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar! Let us adore Jesus in the Holy Eucharist with all the angels and saints who adore Him in the everlasting Beatific Vision.
“And I beheld, and I heard a voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was thousand of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.’ And every creature that is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are on the sea, and all that are in them, I heard them all saying, ‘To Him who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, blessing and honor and glory and dominion, forever and ever.’ And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen,’ and the elders fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever” (Apoc 5:11-14).
Ave Maria!