The Catholic World, Vol. 13, April to September, 1871

by Various

The doctrine, therefore, of the intercession and the invocation of saints is a cosmological law, resulting from the law of hierarchy, unity, and communion, and governing the relation of purely created persons with those elevated to the supernatural moment.

It must be here remarked that the mediatorship of persons elevated is not confined only to persons in their mere natural state, but it extends also to persons elevated to the supernatural moment, because the supernatural term admits of variety of degree, some persons being endowed with a certain fulness of that moment, some with much less. Those in whom the fulness is realized are hierarchically mediators between the Theanthropos and other elevated spirits possessing a less amount of that term, and can consequently intercede for the latter.

It must be remarked, in the second place, that the law governs the cosmos not only in its germinal state, but also in its state of completion and perfection; and we cannot possibly discover or imagine by what logical process Protestantism, which admits this law in the germinal and incipient state of the cosmos, denies it to exist between persons elevated to the state of palingenesia and those who are yet in the germinal state. This denial, so far as we can see, could be supported only by the supposition that as soon as an elevated person reaches its final development, every tie of union, every bond of intercourse, is immediately broken asunder between him and other persons living yet in the germinal state of the cosmos. But how false and absurd this supposition would be is evident to every one who at all understands the exterior works of God. The cosmos being measured by time, is essentially successive; in other words, all the elements of the cosmos cannot possibly reach their final completion at one and the same time, the law of variety and hierarchy necessarily forbidding it. It is absolutely necessary, then, that some elements should reach their final perfection first and some afterwards, in proportion as they come to take place in the cosmos successively. If, therefore, by one element of the cosmos reaching its final development all intercourse were to be broken between it and all other elements which have not reached so high a condition, it would follow that the cosmos would never be one, never in harmony, until all had reached their final completion and the creation of more elements entirely ceased. It would be a continual disorder and confusion until the end of the world. Now this is absurd, since unity and harmony must always govern and adorn God's works. Nor can we see any intrinsic reason why it should be broken. The only plea alleged by Protestants in support of this suspension of all communion between the spirits in palingenesia and those living on earth, is that there can be no possible means of communication between them. They express this idea commonly by saying that the saints in heaven cannot hear our prayers. How philosophical this plea is we leave it to the intelligent reader to determine. Suppose we had no direct answer to give to this plea, the absolute necessity of the cosmos being one and harmonious would make a true philosopher infer that the infinite must have found a means whereby to keep up this communication, though it might be unknown to us what that means actually is.

But the direct answer is at hand. The Word of God is essentially the life of the cosmos. He is the type of all the essences, of all the natures, of all the personalities, of all the acts composing the cosmos. The cosmos, in all these respects, is reflected in the Word. "All that was made in him was life." (St. John.)

Now, all elevated spirits are united to and live in the Incarnate Word. The spirits or persons in the germinal state are united to his person by the supernatural essence and the supernatural faculties of intelligence and of will. This forms the essential union between them and the Theanthropos. The spirits in the final state are united to him in the same substantial sense, with the exception that their supernatural essence has reached its utmost completion, their supernatural intelligence is changed into intuition, and their supernatural will has immediate possession of God.

The consequence of these principles is that the spirits in the germinal state produce acts of invocation to the spirits in the final state, and these acts are reflected or reproduced in the Theanthropos as the type and the intelligible objective life of the cosmos.

The spirits in the final state see, by intuition, in the Theanthropos all those acts of invocation of the spirits in the germinal state, and thus come to know what the spirits on earth claim from them. As orator and audience, living in the same atmosphere, can hold intercourse with each other, because the words uttered by the orator are transmitted by the air to the ears of his audience, so the spirits on earth and the spirits in heaven hold intercourse with each other, because they live in the same medium.

The spirits on earth making acts of invocation to their brethren in heaven, these acts are reflected or reproduced in the Theanthropos, and from him reverberate and reach the eyes of the spirits in heaven living in him, and thus they come to the knowledge of the wants and prayers of their brethren on earth.

But why such interposition of persons when we could go directly to the Theanthropos? Does this not detract from the mediatorship of Christ?

Why, but because the cosmos must be one? Why, but because all the elements of the cosmos must communicate with each other? And how can this doctrine detract from the mediatorship of Christ when he is made the source, the origin, the end of everything? If Catholic doctrine claimed this intercourse independently of the Theanthropos, it would certainly detract from his mediatorship. But do we not establish and centre this mediatorship of the saint entirely in the Theanthropos?