This final section of the O Antiphon literary meditation is the true destination, where the joy and hope are realized and the most beautiful citations from the saints are to be found. (Click here for Part 1 and Part 2.)

…in darkness and the shadow of death: the mysterium iniquitatis. But there are deeper mysteries, greater mysteries… and a great chasm is fixed between these mysteries and the sterile works of the void. As the chill sets into the car, I watch snow collect on my windshield… the beauty of a single snowflake, of latticed geometric complexity expressed in prismatic refracting light, is too much. Could I, could anyone, see the inner structure of the snowflakes on this windshield, the dendrites and needles, the columns and crystals and plates, fractals of immeasurable mathematical complexity, it would all be too much. Microcosms of beauty and intricacy are embedded in the humblest things, the most fleeting and contingent of being. A quintillion water molecules make up one snowflake – and each atom itself a world of movement and energy, attraction, repulsion, relationship: their nuclei as stars to which their electrons orbit like satellites – all this, o Creator alme siderum, is but the material world.

The world of souls? The realm of spirit? The very air we breathe teems with the presence of angels – or, more properly, is in them. And the universe, in turn, is in God – our everything adding absolutely nothing to the sum total of existence, the widening gyre that Yeats saw with dread become a whirlwind of praise from below to above… soaring to Shamayim where the angels call in love. And so I invoke your intercession, o blessed spirits who behold the face of God, especially you who govern music, and you who govern peace.

The heavens shall rain forth the just one, his kingship in our midst as meek and quiet as the snow collecting in drifts. He shall come down as gently as dew on fleece. Again, it is you, o Virgin, Fleece of Heavenly Rain, you the cloud of concealment bearing aloft the Godhead. And, in the fullness of time, so will he descend to overtake the accidents of the sacred species, remaining for all time among his people, as softly and as gently as dew on fleece. See, power is ruled. Wisdom instructed. And it is You, thou Child of the poor, You, Jesus Hostia, the glorious ray… which pierces the clouds of our history.

All this is the work of vehement love, of a divine eros. At the very heart of sacrifice burns a lamp of fire, for the flames of divine love are like the flames of hell, which never say it is enough. Passionate love casts itself before its beloved, such that abasement and exaltation are mysteriously intertwined.

Creation, too, will be exalted. The cosmos will be transfigured according to an oblative gentleness. The Eucharistic paradigm introduces into creation the principle of a radical change, a… “nuclear fission”, which penetrates to the heart of all being… to the point where God will be all in all, as gently as dew on fleece, ablaze in cosmic fire.

I suffer insofar as I cannot create. The human person is driven to elicit life from the matter which has not yet been animated with love. The Awakening Slave images this quest, this labor. Between the divine stwórka and the human twórka1 lies an analogous mission; this is my voice, and it bears a hidden power… an echo of the mystery of creation – for every genuine artistic inspiration goes beyond what the senses perceive, and reaching beyond reality’s surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery. This is true power, to evoke the deepest meanings of creation and set them like glistening gems, to superdetermine the life around you as art, and shine forth new epiphanies of beauty heretofore undisclosed. Such is an inbreaking of heaven. Wisdom is vindicated by her works: There is no wealth but life, and, I tell you, we got life now, we got life: it bursts forth from our thought and our pens and our voices, in our words and our songs, like springs of living water. Witness, the winter birds all gather at the feeder outside my window.

I have long considered: Were I Solomon, what grace would I choose above all others? Through all these years, the answer for me never varies. It is this: to be bound irrevocably, by invincible chains of love, to the heart of my true Beloved. I am traitorous, I am untrustworthy – yet nor do I desire ever to be released: I am not; Love is. Willingly do I seek to be taken by love, possessed by love, consecrated wholly according to its designs. To be a slave unto love is a blessed servitude which no exterior force can enjoin, its own created dynamism of interiority and freedom. Master craftsman of hearts, conquer here, by love alone. I offer my heart to your captivation, your rule, your kingship. It is your power, and the splendor of your uncreated beauty, to which I submit.

Loose the bonds from off thy neck, o captive daughter Sion. Let us now embrace and bind around us with love those sweet chains, which will render us servants and lovers of Jesus Christ – of the wisdom of love it is said, her fetters will be a place of strength; her snare, a robe of spun gold. Her yoke will be a gold ornament; her bonds, a purple coat. For unto us a Savior is given who bids: Bind thyself with my chains of gold, chains of love, chains of peace.

[Concepts developed by Pope St. John Paul II.]

Image: Adobe Stock. By vadim_fl.

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V. J. Tarantino

V. J. Tarantino is co-founder of Sacred Beauty, a Private Association of the Faithful in the Diocese of Bridgeport.  She has studied ancient and Medieval metaphysics and has devoted her adult life to the service of liturgy (study of liturgical texts and norms, the cultivation of sacred elocution, musical performance and composition, the beautification of sacred space, and the organization and direction of public Eucharistic Adoration) and to immersion in the writings of the Doctors of the Church and of recent Popes. Her writing can be found at https://questionsdisputedandotherwise.substack.com/