Man Redeemed

'Man of Sorrows', c.1560, by Luis de Morales (c.1509-1586), Minneapolis Institute of Art

‘God beholds thee individually, whoever thou art. He “calls thee by name”. He sees thee, and understands thee, as he made thee. He knows what is in thee, all thy own peculiar feelings and thoughts, thy dispositions and likings, thy strength and thy weakness. He views thee in thy day of rejoicing, and thy day of sorrow. He sympathises in thy hopes and thy temptations. He interests himself in all thy anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of the spirit. He has numbered the very hairs of thy head and the cubits of thy stature. He compasses thee round and bears thee up and sets thee down.
 
…Thou art not only his creature (though for the very sparrows he has a care, and pitied the “much cattle” of Nineveh), thou art man redeemed and sanctified, his adopted son, favoured with a portion of that glory and blessedness which flows from him everlastingly unto the Only-begotten’.
 
St John Henry Newman, 1801-1890