The Right Note!

THE RIGHT NOTE!

Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB

            Music is such a phenomenon that if a wrong note is played, it can disrupt the whole harmony and that is because music itself is harmony! What makes a music soothing to listen is the harmony and the rhythm that is present in it.

            Keeping this as our background, we can compare this to our salvation history. An orchestra director has before him a score. It was written by a great composer, and all the adequate directions have been scored for a perfect rendition. The musicians are all free; they can follow the directions of the conductor, or they can ignore them. They can be either reactionary and never turn a page or they can be liberal and just play anything.

            Now suppose that one of the musicians decides deliberately to hit a sour note. The conductor hears it. He may either wave his baton and order the orchestra to play it over, or he can ignore it. It makes no difference, which he does, because, at a certain temperature, that note is flying out into space at the rate of 1,200 feet a second. As long as time endures, there is discord and disharmony somewhere in God’s universe.

            Regardless of how much one wanted to make the universe universally harmonious again, it could not be done by anyone within time, because time is irreversible.

            The only way that discord could be stopped would be is by someone reaching out from eternity, laying hold of that wild note and stopping it in its mad flight. But would it still be a sour note? Not necessarily. On one condition it could become a sweet note, namely, if the one who stopped it wrote a new symphony and made that one not the first note in the new melody. Then it would be a sweet note.

            Something like that must have happened at the beginning of the human race. God wrote a perfect symphony. It was well scored, but humankind was free to play a discord. Discords n the symphony of life did not mean our freedom was destroyed.

            At the beginning, man being free hit a discordant note, a disobedient note. That discord went through human nature, and it infected everyone. That original discord could not be stopped by man himself, because he could not repair an offense against the Infinite with his finite self. He had contracted a bigger debt that he could pay. The debt could be paid only by the Divine Master Musician coming out of His Eternity into time. But there is a world of difference between stopping a discordant note and a rebellious man. One has no freedom, the other has and God refuses to be a totalitarian dictator in order to abolish evil by destroying human freedom. God could seize a note but He would not seize man. Instead of conscripting man, God willed to consult humanity again as to whether or not it wanted to be made a member of the Divine orchestra once more. Almighty God, having given the freedom to man, will not take it away again.

            There was a Divine consultation with humanity, in which a Woman was asked By God if She could give Him human nature. “Will You give me a new note out of humanity with which I can compose a new symphony?” In the name of all humanity, She consented: “Be it done unto Me.” This new Man must be a man; otherwise God would not be acting in the name of humanity. But He must also be outside the current of infection to which all men are subject. Being born of a woman, He will be a man; being born of a Virgin, He will be a sinless Man.

            His Mother Mary then became to a new humanity what a lock was to a canal. If a ship is sailing on a polluted canal and wishes to transfer itself to clear waters on a higher level, it must pass through a device which locks out the polluted waters and raises the ship to the higher position. Then the other gate of the lock is lifted and the ship rides on the new, clear waters, taking none of the polluted waters with it.

            When God took upon Himself the human nature and became Christ through the Virgin Mother, He was the first note in the new melody. It is to our personal will freely to incorporate to Him by faith, thus adding another note and creating a new humanity. We appreciate this saving grace by a free act, repeating the words of the Woman: “Be it done unto Me.”


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