The Word Became Flesh -- Making It Real (Part 2)

 My ears had heard of you

but now my eyes have seen you (Job 42:5)

The words of Job when he encounters God (has an experience of the Divine) echo those of the Samaritan villagers in John 4: They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."

"Hearing for ourselves," "Seeing for ourselves" is the rock upon which our faith is built.  John's prologue tells us that the Word became flesh and "pitched his tent among us."  It was not enough for God to send prophets with His message; He had to come in the flesh, so that we might experience in person His love, care, concern for us.  The Old and New Testament are a record of God's willingness to be involved in our lives. Jesus addresses people exactly the way the Father addressed people in the Old Testament -- invitingly, angrily, sadly, compassionately.  He calls people by name; he helps them in time of trouble, rescues them from oppression, forgives them, shows them a mother's love.  Jesus weeps for people, struggles to help them understand him, patiently tells them about the Father, warns them, urges them, takes them to task.

Early Christian literature shows that God continued to communicate with people even after Jesus' ascension.  Clement of Alexandria wrote an essay called Christ the Educator.  In it, he described Christian life in terms of the Word (Jesus) acting as the paidagogos (pedagogue) (companion educator) of the Christian.  In Greek culture, the pedagogue was a family servant who took the young child to school through the sometimes perilous city streets, stayed with him in the "classroom," and showed him how to learn through his example, advice, and the decisions he made in his environment.  His job was not academic --to teach the school subjects.  There was a schoolmaster for that.  The pedagogue, however, spent the day with the child, helping him learn through companionship.  The servant and the child formed a relationship of affection.

In Clement's mind, Christ does this for us; a continuous dialog takes place between Christ and the Christian, a dialog that occurs in shifting circumstances and continues through stages of development.  In our own day, the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola are based on the conviction that God can and wants to be met in dialog.  Ignatius had respect for the authority of the Church, but it did not substitute for the communication that God could address to an individual heart and the response that the person could make.

The Church is our schoolmaster; Christ is our Pedagogue.  He "opens our minds to understand the Scriptures;" He shows us their application in our own lives.  He is the rock upon which we ground our search for meaning. Like the Samaritan villagers, we cannot live by someone else's experience. We have to meet Christ "in the flesh" ourselves.  If we reflect on our own experience, we may find God's care and concern for us from the beginning.  Peter came to Andrew and said, "We have found the Messiah, the one written about in the Scriptures."  That "word" got Andrew's attention, but Andrew had to come for himself to "see" and "hear" Jesus in the flesh.  

The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made him known (John 1:17).  

Jesus continues today to make the Father known to us, if we but know how to listen.

Making It Real

 John Henry Cardinal Newman is noted for taking the "notional" ideas of Christianity and making them real/ concrete/ particular.  It is what needs to happen in all of our lives.  Someone once said, "The man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument."  I think this is why the entire Old Testament is comprised not of rules and commandments, but rather of experiences, of "stories."  

But the stories we read must become our own if they are not to remain just history.  Which of us had not had the experience that Abraham had, of releasing (sacrificing) our children to the hands of God?  At some point, we have to let go of them and surrender them into His loving Providence and Care.  If we read the bible as just history or stories that happened back then, it will never be our story.

Usually, the Bible begins to come alive, to become "ours," when we encounter Jesus Christ.  He is the eternal Word of God, and only He can bring the written word to life for us.  On the Sunday of the Resurrection, the Risen Christ encounters two disciples as they leave Jerusalem in sadness and disappointment:  "We had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel."  But Jesus said to them, ...how slow of heart you are to believe all that the prophets have spoken. And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

My favorite Greek icon is the one portraying Jesus holding the open book in one hand, with the fingers of the other hand in the traditional pose of teacher.  The thing about icons is that they are meant to be "read," or interpreted, like literature.  Here, the meaning is clear:  only Jesus can open for us the book of life; only He can show us its reality and meaning.  St. Paul says somewhere, "the letter kills, but the spirit gives life."  Those who read slavery into the scriptures are good examples of what Paul is saying.  The bible without the Spirit can be read the way we want it to.  But Jesus promised at the Last Supper that He would send the Spirit who would reveal all things to us, taking from what is "Mine" and making it known to you (Jn. 14 and 16).

Today is the feast of the great St. Augustine.  In his autobiographical Confessions, Augustine reflects on the meaning of his life in light of its pivotal turning point -- his conversion and baptism.  In his reflections, he discerns the hand of God, caring for him and guiding him towards his eventual happiness.  Though he had long sought the meaning of life in philosophy, he ultimately recognized what the psalms call "the fair beauty of the Lord."  The words of Scripture suddenly became real for him; they were written about him!

It's not about religion; it's about relationship with the Living Word, who alone can show us its beauty.

Augustine wrote:  My soul is like a house, too small for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it.  It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it.

If we remember that "soul" refers to our minds, hearts, and wills, his words become even more penetrating:  My mind is too small for you to enter, enlarge it.  My heart is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it.  My will is too weak to embrace You, but I beg you to strengthen me.

An Incredible Gift

 My mother almost died when I was born.  She was told that she had the Rh negative factor in her blood and that if she had any more children, she would die, or the child would die, or both would die.  At that time, Mom was not Catholic but Southern Baptist.  She saw nothing wrong with birth control, but my dad was not only Catholic but German Catholic.  A rule was a rule was a rule.  And my mother would do nothing to make him go against his faith.

When she became pregnant again, she told God, "If I die in childbirth, it's Your responsibility to raise these kids!"  Not only did she not die in childbirth, but she went on to have six healthy children.  She did lose one baby along the way, with much grief, and one of my sisters was a twin; the twin did not survive.

Today, I am so very grateful for my mother's faith; she did not know what to do but put the whole issue in the hands of God Himself.  And the result is an incredible gift -- all my wonderful brothers and sisters.  I cannot imagine what my life would have been without them; I cannot imagine my life today without them.

Man's wisdom is great indeed, but God's wisdom is greater, if only we can learn to tap into it. I think part of seeking wisdom is knowing that God wants to give it to us.  Numbers 24:16 says, "When he falls prostrate, his eyes are opened."  God communicates Himself to those who worship Him; He "inhabits the praise of His people (Ps. 22:3)."  C.S. Lewis says, In commanding us to praise Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him (Reflections on the Psalms, Chapter 9).

Praise in natural to us in all things except God.  We naturally praise what we love and enjoy:  Isn't it a glorious sunset?  How beautiful are the mountains!  What a gorgeous baby!  What a sweet child!  All enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise.  In fact, our praise seems to complete our enjoyment. But when it comes to praising God, we find ourselves constrained.  It somehow seems artificial to praise God, as if we are embarrassed, stilted.  We do not really "enjoy" God or find Him "beautiful and worthy of praise," even if we faithfully attend so-called "worship" services.  

I think the antidote to our natural reticence to praise God is reading the Psalms, which are full of praise.  Everything is commanded to praise God :  the sun and moon, the birds of the air, the trees of the forest -- commanded to "clap their hands, for He comes!"  Once we "get into" praise, it begins to feel a little less stilted to us and we begin to enjoy it -- and we discover that God Himself enters into our praise and begins to communicate with us in our praise. 

Someone once told me: "Praise is an emotional bandage over an emotional wound that prevents infection."  I have often experienced the fact that two emotions cannot inhabit the same space in us; once we begin to thank and praise God even in our hurt, we find the wound healing and joy taking its place.  Wisdom enlightens the heart, reaching into and over-riding the mind. 

My mother had the wisdom to submit her entire life to God's wisdom and care, even in the most difficult and impossible situation.  And the result is one no one could have predicted.  How grateful I am!

Jesus Wants to be Your Friend

I love watching The Journey Home on EWTN.  This program features men and women who somehow made "the journey" from atheism, agnosticism, Pentecostalism, Calvinism, Mormonism, or nothingnessism, etc. and who eventually found their way into Catholicism.  The reason I love this program is that I love watching how God works in people's lives, no matter where they are, where they begin.  I love hearing the story unfold of how they moved from wherever they begin; I love all the questions and struggles along the way; and I love the peace and joy they exhibit in telling the story.  Some of the guests were raised Catholic, left the church for a time, and eventually returned with a new set of eyes and new appreciation. 

Last night's guest was Kurt Hoover, a young man who was raised in the Wesleyan Church.  His journey of faith began when he was four years old and in Sunday school.  His teacher told the class that Jesus wanted to be their friend, and if they wanted Him as their friend, they had to tell Him so.  Even at four years of age, that made an impression on Kurt, so that night while his family was watching television, we went into a darkened hallway and there he told Jesus that he wanted Jesus to be his friend, and he asked Jesus to come into his heart. "And He Did!," Kurt exclaimed with a smile.  He didn't quite know how, but something was different from that day forward. 

Kurt's journey was, like so many others told on this program, a story of the Holy Spirit working in one life, gradually unfolding from point to point.  This was not the first time that I heard a story of the Holy Spirit working even in a little child, but what was so impressive about this story was that Kurt's mother died when he was ten, and he was left without a mother from that point on.  His father was very good, a very spiritual man, but he was struggling with his own grief and had to grow through it too.  Without knowing Jesus as his "friend," Kurt would have been totally alone.  His story can be found on chnetwork.org.

So many stories tell of God reaching out, leading, guiding, strengthening in hundreds of different ways.  He does not leave us alone, to our own devices.  He is forever wanting to be our Friend, if we will but ask.