I want to wish my readers a very Merry Christmas.
From Charles Peguy's, Temporal and Eternal:
Originally, in principle, as they were founded, the Secular and the Regular were not distinguished, either in theory or in practice; they were not separated. Their destinies were not distinct. Your City of God was not as yet cut in two, divided into two functions, by a fault, by a longitudinal fissure. Your eternal city was not split in two. The world was the object: that which had to be saved. The Rule, what subsequently be-came the Rule after the specialization, was the matter and the power, the living source. From that source life flowed indistinguishably: invading, inundating and submerging the world; nourishing the age, the times. It was essentially a vital operation. A river of inexhaustible mystical life flowing from that mystical source and nourishing the world. Saving the age. One single movement, always flowing in the same direction, infinitely fertile, from the Rule to the World, at least from what became the Rule.
Jesus did not come to dominate the world. He came to save it. Quite a different object; an entirely different operation. And he did not come to separate himself from the world. An entirely different method. You see, my friend, if he had wanted to withdraw from the world, to retire from the world, he had simply not to come into the world. It was as simple as that. In that way he could have withdrawn in advance. There was never to be such a chance again. Such a good opportunity: of remaining at the right hand of the Father. As long as he was seated at the Father's side he was withdrawn from the world, in a certain sense, in a way you will never be, infinitely more than you will ever be. Had he wanted to withdraw from the world, if that was his object, it would have been perfectly simple; he had simply not to go into it.
The centuries had not yet opened, the gate of salvation was not open, the great story had not begun. And if not to be in the world was his object, then he had merely not to start. That short tour was unnecessary. But, on the contrary, he did go into the world, into the centuries, to save the world. He even went twice. Or rather he only went once, but doubly, twice in once. The intention being doubly underlined. First of all, in a first movement, making an infinite movement, an infinite leap as it were, as God he became man. et homo factus est, which you must admit, my friend, is not exactly a way of withdrawing from the world. It was perhaps, on the contrary, a way of entering into it infinitely, in full: to be there, to become part of it by incarnation. In corpus, in carnem. Might it be said that no one ever went into the world so fully?
I"ll leave the rest to Mr Handel:
