The Happy Heart is True

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to the group on 20 May 2015.

The Virgin Mary from the Ghent Altarpiece, 1432 by Jan van Eyck

Brief, bright new thread...

You're going to like this, you've been waiting for this. With all of that compellingly creepy stuff, how can God possibly win out? How can Christ possibly win out? How can the Blessed Virgin Mary possibly win out?

O, so definitively... So definitive is their victory.

Not going to fully flesh any of this out, but this thought has invigorated me.

We've had this conversation before: surely Christian art will never again have relevance, in part because its reliance on the deus ex machina.

First of all, how non-postmodern to say "never"!

Second of all, our this God isn't in a machine. Our God is the CREATOR OF EVERYTHING. Our God is CREATOR.

Aristotle said the poet should always "seek what is necessary or probable"

so that it is either necessary or probable that a person of such-and-such a sort say or do things of the same sort, and it is either necessary or probable that this incident happen after that one. It is obvious that the solutions of plots too should come about as a result of the plot itself, and not from a contrivance, as in the Medea and in the passage about sailing home in the Iliad. A contrivance must be used for matters outside the drama — either previous events which are beyond human knowledge, or later ones that need to be foretold or announced. For we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g., that in Sophocles' Oedipus.

And yes, on the human plane that makes sense to a certain degree. But here's the rub: our God is different than the gods of Euripides. And one of the places we see that most clearly is in the gratuitous designation of Mary as Mediatrix.

Check out this section from Lumen Gentium:

III. On the Blessed Virgin and the Church

60. There is but one Mediator as we know from the words of the apostle, "for there is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all".(298) The maternal duty of Mary toward men in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows His power. For all the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men originates, not from some inner necessity, but from the divine pleasure. It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on His mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it. In no way does it impede, but rather does it foster the immediate union of the faithful with Christ.

The italicized portion is mainly what I wanted you all to see, but it's all so beautiful and good I can't bring myself to excerpt. God as CREATOR can't be constrained by "what is necessary or probable"! That italicized phrase, if you can momentarily step outside your cradle Catholic mind, is utterly MIND BLOWING. I think we often think of God as operating from necessity: God would necessarily be one, would necessarily be omnipotent, would necessarily be good, etc. But we sometimes don't realize that there is this peerless CREATOR who moves things, who makes things, who speaks things into being. Not some Plotinian god who helplessly radiates, but a Being who possesses a degree of creative agency utterly unimaginable to us.

And so we go beyond the Sabbath to the Lord's Day
And so we go beyond death and Purgatory and Halloween to All Saints' Day

New wine in new wine skins, son!

And you can see why saints like St. Brigid have been inebriated by this riotous superfluity:

I should like a great lake of beer to give to God.
I should like the angels of Heaven to be tippling there for all eternity.
I should like the men of Heaven to live with me, to dance and sing.
If they wanted I’d put at their disposal vats of suffering
White cups of love I’d give them with a heart and a half.
Sweet pitchers of mercy I’d offer to every man.
I’d make heaven a cheerful spot,
Because the happy heart is true.
I’d make men happy for their own sakes.
I should like Jesus to be there too.
I’d like the people of heaven to gather from all the parishes around.
I’d give a special welcome to the women,
the three Marys of great renown.
I’d sit with the men, the women of God,
There by the great lake of beer
We’d be drinking good health forever,
And every drop would be a prayer.

And God can do creepypasta too. Just read about the Three Secrets of Fatima. Let Slender Man wave his octopus arms around the playground.

Because the happy heart is true.