From God’s Point of View

Saint Ignatius of Loyola writes that when God looks down upon this world, He sees anxious people hurrying through the market places of earth or pacing around the farms and produce-meadows of the country, almost entirely unmindful of their eternal destiny – which is to be with God after death and to live with Him in eternal glory in Heaven.

God does not need light to see His world. He does not need the light of the sun by day, nor yet the light of the moon and stars by night to see this turning world. God sees every single thing He made and every particle and shade of detail of what He created out of nothing.

God sees the mineral world: the heavens of globes of light in all their vast expanses of sparkling wonders, the terrestrial seas and rivers and lakes and ponds, the mountains and valleys and flat lands. Each smallest grain of sand and all its possible divisions He sees and holds in His infinite power, each littlest drop of liquid.

God sees the animals: big ones like elephants, and the smallest ones like gnats; the strong horses; the birds that have air and sky as their earthly heaven; the fish that exult in the boundless extensions of the great waters of the globe.

God sees the old lady knitting her sweater. God sees the child at prayer, saying the rosary. God sees babies in their mother’s wombs. God sees old people on the brink of their graves. He foresees the hour of death of all human beings. He sees them when they are suffering. He sees when their souls depart from this mortal life. All these things He knows and loves. He sees cripples, and the people going off in the early morning, going into rye fields to gather the grain. He sees the graves of all who are dead, and their bodies that are waiting for their hour of resurrection. God sees the television sets and the radios, and hears their words.  He sees all the movies, all the books. He sees banquets, and meetings, and calculations. All that is, all that could ever be, is in the full presence of Almighty God.

God sees all the good that men do and all the evil, their purposes and achievements, not as in a picture, but as these events are being enacted. God sees all the thoughts men have, the actions men do, and the omissions they make to disobey His Divine Law; all the passions and rebellions, pride and agony and regret. . . .God looks down on the world and sees with infinite delight the souls of baptized babies looking up at Him like perfect burning stars. He sees the billions of guardian angels standing and protecting each human person as long as his life lasts.

But of all the things that God sees, what He sees first is the Real Presence of His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the appearance of bread and wine, wherever It may be, in the thousands of places round this earth where It can be found. Every particle of the Blessed Sacrament, every drop of the Consecrated Wine, those are what attract God’s attention first . . . He sees His own Heart, God’s very Self, not multiplied but multi-located. The Heart of God and the eyes of God leap to the sight of His Real Presence under the appearance of the Wheaten Bread and Sacred Wine. He takes infinite delight in beholding Himself in all the millions of places where the Blessed Sacrament is kept in the tabernacles of the chapels and churches; in the golden cups in the ciboria; and in all the places in which Jesus is lost. Where the Blessed Sacrament has been lost, the Real Presence stays on as long as these species of bread and wine linger.

All times and ages of this world are present to God. All time is as a tick of the clock. . . . He sees the creation of the world, the garden of Paradise, the first man Adam and the first woman Eve, the sinful fall of Adam, the banishment from Paradise; the promise of the Redeemer given to Adam, Abraham, Moses and Isaias. He sees David and his royal line; the small gray house at Nazareth, where Mary was immaculately conceived; and in that same humble house, when Mary was fourteen years old, the virginal conception of Himself, called Jesus Christ, true God and true Man. He sees His flight into Egypt as a baby, His return to Nazareth, His childhood and His staying with Mary, His Mother, and Saint Joseph, His foster father, for thirty years. He sees His public life, His preaching, His miracles. He sees the establishment of His Church with Saint Peter as the Head. Almighty God sees the glory of the sacramental system.

He sees His condemnation by His own people, the edict of Pilate, His Crucifixion and Death. He sees His glorious Resurrection from the dead, and His Ascension into Heaven and His promise to come again into this world with the armies of His angels to judge the world by fire.

And above all, the loving and searching eye of God sees the blessed tomb where His ever-Virgin Mother was laid to rest – from which Her Divine Son raised Her to be crowned the glorious Queen of Heaven and Earth, of angels  and of saints.

God’s eyes are still won to that place, still in our world, the tomb of Her who carried in Her womb Him whom the whole world could not contain. God knows Mary to be the perfect Daughter of the Father, perfect Mother of the Son, perfect Spouse of the Holy Ghost-without whose consent God would never have made the world nor become Man: Dixit autem Maria: Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum” (Saint Luke 1:38).