Perfectly Incredible; Incredibly Perfect

“Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Luke 1:28

Nothing seems to divide Catholics from the rest of Christendom so much as our unyielding devotion to Mary. If our salvation comes through the grace of the merits of Christ alone, why do we distract ourselves so much with these dogmas that seem to elevate her to a status that a casual observer might call “goddess”? The simple answer, of course, is that understanding who Mary is helps us to understand who God is. Put another way, to have created Mary to be any less than perfect, and to deny her the graces that would help her to maintain that perfection, would be wholly inconsistent with God's very being.

The first Marian dogma that was defined was that she is theotokos, God-bearer, the mother of God. If she were not the mother of Christ in both His humanity and divinity, then the incarnation has no power. God did not simply infuse his essence into a human; He took on humanity as His own nature in the person of Jesus. Though the other dogmas of Mary teach us about God's nature in a much less direct way, if we realize that they help our understanding of God in the same way this one does, we can at least begin to appreciate why they have been defined, and why they are so important.

What, then, does Mary's Immaculate Conception tell us about God? Among other things, it manifests God's utter incompatibility with sin. In the Old Testament, nothing was as unapproachable as the Ark of the Covenant, safeguarded in the Holy of Holies. The Ark was made to perfection, and treated as perfection because it held the written Word of God—the tablets of the ten commandments. Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, carried in her womb the incarnate Word of God—Jesus. Not only must Jesus be without sin, but it was not possible for sin to bear Him (cf. Acts 2:24).

While the Immaculate Conception clearly illustrates this characteristic of what God is not, it points also to a very tangible expression of what God is: family, of which the essence is love. As the Son is one with the Father, he prays that we will be one with Him. In a unique way, Mary's relationship with the Godhead embodies the full spectrum of familial love. She is daughter to the Father; she is mother to the Son; and she is spouse to the Spirit. As the mother and model of the Church, and one of its members, she is also a bride of Christ. This plurality of unities seems to defy our understanding of these relationships. How can she be mother, bride, and sister of Christ? How can she the bride of Christ if she conceives by the Spirit and is betrothed to Joseph? How can she simultaneously hold such a diversity of relationships with God?

Rather than deny these truths because they defy our understanding, we must conclude that our understanding is incomplete, and these truths illumine it. The nuptial bonds of marriage are not identical to the union we will have with Christ as his bride, nor are they the end to which Scripture points when it says man and woman will become “one flesh”. Rather, the end is a mysterious union with God in a familial bond, simultaneously prefigured and actualized in the Eucharist, and most perfectly exemplified by Mary.

This all sounds fantastic and incomprehensible and intangible. It can make us wonder how we can hope to cross the chasm that separates us from the perfection lived in Mary's life. How misguided is any such despair! Quite the contrary, Mary is the very source of our confidence! By her example, we know that we need not be divine to have the grace of faith that justifies us. For, though she was without original sin, she still had free will. If Eve, with no stain of sin, fell to the pride to which the serpent enticed her, surely Mary had such freedom. Yet she was favored. (I don't know why the bishops prefer that translation to “full of grace”.) The Lord was with her. And we know we have the Spirit of the Lord within us. If we can only humble ourselves to accept the grace He freely gives us with those famous words of Mary—“May it be done to me according to your word”—then we can be confident in our hope that we will share in the eternal union promised to us.

Immaculate Conception,
Be our hope, that we may live to see the fulfillment of God's promise.
Be our light, showing us the way of your Son.
Be our mother, comforting us with your unfailing love.
Be our sister, encouraging us to obedience of our Father.
And be our constant companion, to the hour of our death, that we might always seek in this world to model the spotlessness that leads to the peace of the world to come.

Gracious Goodness!

"In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:18

I will admit, I frequent the fast food drive-thru with disconcerting regularity. And for the majority of them, the bar is set pretty low when it comes to service. But my trip to BK the other day was a new low. Literally, the only words spoken to me were “Can I take your order?” and “$5.84, second window.” I've gotten somewhat used to no “thank you” or “have a good day.” But to not get out one word at the window? And even the couple phrases she could squeeze out had such a despondent tone. On my way home, I wondered, even if you couldn't care less about your job, what is so wrong in this girl's life that to offer a simple greeting is a chore?

Now, it's entirely possible that I caught her on a bad day. And hopefully it was just the day that had her down and not a big, complicated mess. But when I started thinking about it, I realized something. At that particular moment, she had nothing to be thankful for. Every joy in our life, no matter how big or how small, is joyful because we are grateful for the gift that is in it.

Complete gratitude is the will of God, because it disposes us to humility. While we rejoice in what He has given us, we recognize that it is His gift, and our gratitude becomes trust and dependence on Him. A prayer of thanksgiving is ultimately a prayer of praise. And the more we praise Him in thanks, the more we remember Who He is, and how good He is, and we become conditioned not to praise Him for what He has done, but simply for being Who He is.

Blessed among women,
When Elizabeth called you the mother of her Lord, you gave all the praise to Him. Help us, in all things, to be thankful, that His goodness may be magnified by our lives.

God's Three-Step Program: Adoption, Transfiguration, and Evangelization

“And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.'” Matthew 17:2-3.5

What a mysterious scene! Moses and Elijah coming to talk to Jesus, while He takes on a barely-recognizable appearance. And this reminds us of His baptism how? (We remember, of course, at His baptism, those same words: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”) It wasn't until I heard Patrick Madrid's insight that I really had any understanding of this event beyond its literal sense.

There are only a few denominations that have retained the sacrament of confirmation, and even the Orthodox churches usually administer it in unison with baptism, but here we see the Lord fulfilling in His own life the completion of His baptism as we do in confirmation. It is in baptism that we are united with Christ on the cross. Our sin is taken up by Him, and we are restored to the perfection of grace in which Adam was created. (We still bear the concupiscence that resulted from original sin – and inevitably leads to our own actual sin -- as a temporal consequence, but that's not really relevant at this point.) We become children and heirs of God and lay hold of our salvation.

But Jesus didn't command His disciples merely to baptize; “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20, emphasis added). When we are baptized, we have the knowledge of Christ that an infant has of its mother. It is by growing in knowledge that we mature in love. Christ, being God, lacked no knowledge, but for the sake of the disciples who witnessed this event, it was fitting that they saw Moses and Elijah with Him. So many times throughout the gospels, Jesus refers to “the law and the prophets”, and every time He does, it is in the fullest sense, because he knows them intimately, as typified here by Moses and Elijah.

Obviously, we cannot reach the fullness of understanding in our lifetimes. But we can commit ourselves totally to the Father, through Christ. We are baptized, often as infants, and become God's children. But, like an ungrateful child, like the prodigal son, we can give up the all the gifts we inherit simply by being a part of the family. At confirmation, we embrace our kinship, and vow to seek the fullest knowledge that will lead to the truest love. We avail ourselves of the gifts of the Spirit, ours by anointing, and become fit to teach.

The sky opens, and a voice is heard from above. But, the second time around, He has a little more to say. Did you miss it? “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”

Seat of Wisdom, intercede for us, that we may be engulfed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. May His life in us blossom daily, that we may be equipped and fortified for the charge we have been given, to make disciples and teach them.

The Truth Hurts

“Proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and be diverted in myths.” 2 Timothy 4:2-4

There is such a tremendous difference between telling someone that his actions are wrong and telling him that he is condemning himself. The former address objective truth, whereas the latter makes a judgment. There are so many who say, “Who are you to tell me what is right and wrong?” and in their defensiveness compel their critics to “love the sinner, but hate the sin.” They are confused by the notion that correction, admonishment, and reprimanding are signs of judgment about their character, not of their action. They recognize the value of “tough love” until they are at the receiving end.

Oftentimes, their blindness is only agitated by the messenger. The convincing and encouraging are often missing. I freely admit that I'm often among the worst in that regard. But if we present right teaching to its opponents as fact, without the groundwork of reason, our message will usually be, at best, divisive.

I had a discussion with a Protestant friend the other day, and we talked a little bit about the relation between Scripture and the Church. I think the gist of what I presented was that they were separate, but equally authoritative, complementary and supplementary necessities of faith. But it has really gotten me thinking about the role of the Church. And my conclusion is this, though these summations are necessarily incomplete: Scripture contains the essential elements of the gospel that can bring anyone who seeks righteousness to the grace of salvation through faith. The Church is the protector and interpreter of Scripture through her union with the Holy Spirit. The Word of God includes the entirety of Scripture, but we know by John 1 that the Word is Jesus, and no amount of writing can contain Him in His entirety. How then do we come to full knowledge of Him? Through his bride, the Church.

The divisions among the baptized make it clear that we are enduring this time prophesied by St. Paul. To what can we appeal to heal the brokenness of the Body? We must discover again the source of sound doctrine. We must expose the myths. We must answer those teachers who say that our desires and curiosity can be satisfied in any manner but through the Church. And we must do so with encouragement, conviction, persistence, and patience.

Our Lady of Sorrows, as you saw your Son's Body brought to destruction on the cross, only to be restored by the power of the Father, so you see His Body again torn and suffering. You became our mother on that day. Pray for us, and hold us in your arms, that we may again be restored for the glory of the Almighty.

What's in a Name?

“Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name,
   your kingdom come,
   your will be done,
   on earth as in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10

Hallowed be your name. Of all the petitions in this prayer taught us by our Lord, none is more misunderstood, and thus glazed over, than this. And, insofar as nothing can make the name of the Lord unholy, it seems to cross from the misunderstood to the unnecessary. Yet it begins and is the foundation of our Lord's prayer—without acknowledging God's name, the prayer is fruitless.

There are two things that are helpful to remember at this point: 1) the prayers of Christ, because He is God, are always and completely fulfilled, and 2) every “action” of God is for Him in this sense: it is for us, that we may be drawn to Him, and magnify His glory.

Though Christ taught His disciples this prayer for them, He was the first to pray it. It is fulfilled, and it is fulfilled in His name: it is an oath, a covenant—the covenant.

God's name is holy, and need not become holy. His name is holy because he is holy, and He and His name are One. And because His prayer is bound to His name, we have the same assurance in the “Our Father” as we do the sacraments, as we do in our salvation through the cross: “everyone shall be saved who calls on the name of the Lord” (Acts 2:21).

And if this prayer is self-fulfilling, we should not have far to look in this world to get a foretaste of the next. “On earth as it is in heaven.” And it is so. We may have to look past the worldliness of the world to see it, but the divine has His fingerprints all over the place. From the splendor of creation to the gift of free will, his mark is plain for all who want to see it. But the real glimpses of heaven are a little more hidden. The easiest way to find them is to find evidence of the devil's work, because what is most treasured by God is certainly most hated by Satan.

Moral relativism vs. absolute truth. The indulgence of self vs. the gift of love. The foolishness of rationalization vs. the wisdom of obedience. “All religions are one” vs. “there is only one religion”. “Love” produces families vs. the family as love.

The point is, that the latter in all these cases reflects things as they are, and no amount of deceit and destruction can make it unso. We have God's promise. What we need to do now is to dig out these diamonds of truth and make them so irresistible that the deceiver is rendered incapable of hiding them again. We must be the discoverers and champions of truth. For we have sworn by God's own name that it is so.

Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Church,
Guide us, illumine us.
Make us wise, and make us strong.
Grant us firmness in truth, but softness of heart.
Fill us with the riches of your Son,
And make us worthy of our name:
Anointed.

Please, Sir, Can I Have Some More?

“Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.” Luke 6:21

I am STARVING.

My life has been nothing but blessings for the better part of a year. I have learned more about myself, about my faith, about the Church, and about God than I had really ever even considered before. And this last week has been the best yet. I've gotten my hands on a couple great books and I ate them up. Then Friday I was smacked with the the most tangible understanding of the Church as the bride of Christ that I think I will ever know: that our becoming one flesh in the Eucharist is the consummation of our marriage! I can't get enough of this stuff. And I know that no matter how much wisdom, knowledge, or understanding I am given, it will be infinitesimal in comparison to what I'll have in eternity.

This is nothing new. It's not even an idea peculiar to religion (except, perhaps, in terms of scale). In every life, we spend years (maybe less, if we're lucky) trying to figure out the meaning of life, and why we're here, and all these massive, seemingly unanswerable questions. And we begin our search the only way we know how: by breaking it down into terms we can understand. A man may not know where he stands in the grand scheme of things, but he knows he has a mind that understands chemistry like no one else's ever has. A woman may not be the sharpest kid in her class, but she knows she has no equal in her beauty. So they've discovered their gifts. The chemist begins to study, and ever he answer he finds begets infinitely more questions. Maybe the model discovers there is more to her than just being pretty; of any number of things that could turn her off from modeling, the end result is the same: she goes to rediscover her gifts in hope of finding something that she is so passionate about and hungry for that it drives her, consumes her, and sends her on the same quest as the chemist—to answer the infinitely unanswerable.

What I realized this week about this Scripture from Luke, however, absolutely blew me away. I was literally giddy for about 15 minutes. I have always understood this notion to mean that we're going to get to heaven, and God's entire plan will be laid out right in front of us. We'll have all the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to we've ever dreamed of times gazillion trillion. But it's not. It's not about how much we'll know. It points to that, sure, but get this: it's about how happy we will be. (I realize that I am far from the first to see this, but that makes it no less exhilarating.) I was giddy—omigosh-this-is-so-phenomenal-I-couldn't-sleep-if-I-wanted-to excited—over a drop of water! And now I'm told that God wants to fill me to the brim. How great and how glorious is this God of ours!

O, Mother of Goodness,
Teach us to be satisfied by nothing less than your Son. At the foot of the cross, you became our mother. Protect us, as you did Him in his infancy, that we might grow into His perfect sacrifice, and be filled here on earth in His Eucharist, and at the heavenly banquet in the life to come.

Knowing is Half the Battle

November 15, 2008.

“Then Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.'” Luke 24:34

Of all the messages of mercy in Scripture, this, to me, is the clearest, most succinct, and greatest source of hope. There are so many people in this world who do not know Christ. Some have heard His story, and have dismissed it as impossible or irrelevant. The cause of evangelization certainly is not helped by the confusion and discord within Christianity. How much of this comes from our ignorance of Jesus and his commandments? And while those who know the truth are obligated to teach, admonish, and bring others into a fuller understanding of the gospel, we are given no room to judge the ignorant and those who, in seeking truth, are misled, deceived, or otherwise brought to a path that does not bring them into the fullness of truth. We can pray and hope that even those who deny Jesus may still be saved in His mercy. Praise God for His infinite mercy!

But we must not be complacent. It is so easy to twist this message of mercy into that misguided cliché, “Ignorance is bliss.” I submit that ignorance is death, unless it is an ignorance that seeks knowledge. Augustine proposes that no one sins for the purpose of doing evil. Rather, sin is a result of a distorted view of what is good. We see wine as a drug that makes us feel good for a while, not as a drink. We see women as objects, a means to sexual release, not as a divinely and perfectly created masterpiece in the image of God, whose beauty must be honored and protected. The more we remain in ignorance, the more we become blind to the greatest goods, to the treasures and beautiful things. Wine, in Scripture, is a symbol of the Spirit, because He fills us up, makes us drunk and giddy. So wine is a wonderful thing, a foretaste of heaven, and when we see that, it points us heavenward. Women, modeled after Eve, are a type of the Church, the bride of Christ, which is presented to him spotless and pure. When we see that, we see women not for themselves, but creations again that point us toward heaven. And just so with all of creation: “it was very good”. But when we deny creation's divine origin, and it ceases to remind us of the Father and to point us to Him, it becomes for us an occasion of sin. And the more frequently we do this, the more habitual it becomes to see creation through our own eyes rather than God's.

With our darkened understanding of right and wrong, it is impossible to discern through the eyes of God without the Spirit, Who teaches through the Church. Every heart has a law written on it that knows there is right and knows there is wrong. What is crucial is that we recognize that what we believe to be right is not always understood properly, and we must constantly seek the wisdom and understanding to know what is right.

Every heart has a law on it that knows there is right and knows there is wrong. When we choose wrong, we are condemned. When we don't know right, we have hope in God's mercy.

Mother of the Church,
from your immaculate conception you knew God's Mercy. Pray for us, that, by His grace, we may know Him, and become like Him. Teach us the wisdom that gives understanding, that our ignorance may be thrown into the fire, and we may be golden vessels for His Church.

Scratching the Surface of the Surface's Surface

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
   who alone does wonderful deeds.
Blessed be his glorious name forever;
   may all the earth be filled with the Lord's glory.
Amen and amen.” Psalm 72:18-19

Shakespeare. Rembrandt. Mozart. Michaelangelo. How many volumes have been spent exploring the genius, flawless detail, and artistic mastery these and so many others have shared with the world? And it is as nothing. Man's desire and affection for the arts point to our longing for our union with our Creator, and if we can be moved by the tender, sorrowful aching of Mary in the Pietà, then it is a wonder we don't drop dead just from trying to grasp the mind-blowing intricacies that litter His work. The physical universe in which we live, of course, unless it happened by accident, could not have been designed by anything but a divine Being. Of particular beauty, especially lately for me, is Scripture.

One of my favorite aspects of the Church is the depth and unity of its understanding. Even though this comes as no surprise—the Church, after all, brings us to truth, which, by definition, is unity—I am continually floored by the utter interconnectedness of it all. What, for instance, could possibly be the connection between marriage and the Passover in Exodus? (The answer is below.) The more I realize just how One our eternal destination is (including all the imperfections that lead to it), certainly it becomes apparent how easy it could be to disbelieve if a single piece is missing. But it's not. He put it all in there, just the way it needs to be. Every wonderful deed and creation points to God, and so no matter how deeply and richly we understand, we've only just begun.

I saw Christopher West today, giving a presentation on the Theology of the Body, an understanding of human sexuality and how it points to the Eucharist, which gives us our eternal life. I sat in awe for over two hours just thinking, “This is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.” I've been saying that a lot lately. To sum up, in part, what I got from the night:

At the very beginning of the bible, “God created man in His image, in the divine image He created him; male and female, he created them” and “out of 'her man' this one has been taken. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two become one body” (Gen 1:27, 2:23-24). At the very end of the bible, the Church is presented as the wife of the Lamb (Rev 21:10). The imagery of marriage is used extensively, most notably here, as bookends, at Jesus' first miracle in Cana, in the Song of Songs (which is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the bible), and in several parables. Why is marriage—rightly understood—so fundamental to our salvation?

John's gospel (in which we see the miracle at the wedding at Cana) offers many clues. “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him” (John 14:20-21). Sounds very similar to me to this idea of becoming one flesh. It gets much better. I mentioned before that a child express love most perfectly in obedience, trust in his parent's wisdom. When we obey God's commands, we give up our imperfect desires to unite ourselves fully with Him; and just in case we missed it, He sums it very clearly: “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has love greater than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends” (John 15:11-13). So Jesus wants us to love Him by giving our life up to Him (see Matt 16:24), that we might live in him. Marriage on earth, then, is not an end; it is just a hint, a tiny foretaste of the joy that awaits us in the new Jerusalem: a marriage to Christ that gives eternal life.

That brings us to the other aspect of marriage: life. Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply. We, united to Christ in His resurrection, live forever. The Trinity, even, is model of marriage (actually, it's the other way around): the Father and Son are so united in love that their love is another Person, the Holy Spirit. Many wonder why the Catholic Church condemns contraception. There are plenty of practical reasons, but they all stem from one truth, that any union that is not open to the creation of life, to a participation in the divine image in which we were created, cannot rightly be called a marriage. In short, marriage is our expression of divine love. It is a love which is unconditional, sacrificial, obedient, and life-giving; it is true love.

How does that relate to the Passover? Because the Passover is a type of the Eucharist, which is the heart and soul of Christian life, the daily living of unconditional, sacrificial, obedient, life-giving love. In Exodus, God frees the Israelites from slavery (1) to the Egyptians into the promised land (2). During the Passover ritual, they slay a lamb without blemish (3), and every household is saved by the blood of the lamb (4) on the doorpost. (Ex 12:5,7). Anyone outside the community (5) may not partake, everyone in the household must eat the flesh of the same lamb (6), the bread of the feast is unleavened (7), the lamb's bones must remain unbroken (8), and it was to be celebrated as a perpetual institution (9). Jesus is the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins (1) of the world (John 1:29). During the Passover feast at the Last Supper, Jesus took the unleavened bread (7) and said “Take and eat; this is my body” (6) (Matt 26:26). And with the wine, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood (4) of the covenant” (Matt 26:27-28). “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance (9) of me” (1 Cor 11:25). Paul says that “anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body (5), eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11:29). I repeat, He did this during the Passover Feast. This Lamb of God was unblemished (3) (Heb 9:14) and not one of His bones was broken (8) (John 19:36). In Christ, we come to the Father (14:6), and He shows us to the new Jerusalem (2) (Rev 22:9-10).

John 6 is the pinnacle of the imagery of the Eucharist as marriage.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not gave life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors, who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” (John 6:47-51.53-58)

On the cross, we see the physical demonstration of His unconditional, sacrificial, obedient love. In the Passover feast, which He has hinted at here, we are assured that it is life-giving. But how is a marriage consummated? When the two become one flesh. In the Eucharist, we physically consume the Body of Christ. (It gives a whole new meaning to, “You are what you eat,” doesn't it?) He literally becomes one flesh with ours. We have the consummation of the marriage of the Lamb to His bride, the Church. It's so simple, so beautiful, so profound, yet so unimaginable and unimaginably deep. And it's just a glimmer of what awaits us in heaven.

Mother of God,
You experienced a union with Christ unlike any other in all creation. You are the masterpiece of God's wonderful deeds. Lead us to your Son, that we may partake of the wedding feast in the new Jerusalem.

To Be a Kid Again

“Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 18:3-4.

I have always loved kids, always wanted children of my own, and have always been drawn to those of others. They have a simplicity of thinking, a purity of thought, and intensity of passion that we all have a habit of covering up in the name of consideration and love for neighbor. They are insatiably curious, and what seems to be so mundane never ceases to amaze and entertain. Kids are obstinate at times, but they love better—more unconditionally—than any adult. These are the virtues we must possess to enter the kingdom.

God is Truth, unchanging and eternal. We often take that to mean He is complex and unknowable. But it is quite the opposite: God is not unknowable because of His complexity but His simplicity. His ways are deep, rich, and satisfying, and we can (and have) sought to know all there is to know about Him without even touching the surface. In so doing, we try to put Him in boxes that we can compartmentalize and reference, so we can explain Him to others. But we must take care to remember that He is not the sum of all these boxes. They help define Him, not the other way around. When we think simply, as children do, following the little way St. Therese of Lisieux modeled for us, we begin to know Him, and not just to know about Him.

And as we come to know Him, we begin to love him. And as we love Him, our concern for everything else begins to fade, and we can begin to describe Him in a more pure way, out of passion and understanding, not a list of pros outweighing cons. Ask a child why he loves his mother. The answer will almost inevitably be of profound simplicity. But is it not still sincerely honest? Kids don't have the need to rationalize what they know to be true.

And yet, to be “like a child” is not simply to think simply and truly. Beyond so often seeing things exactly for what they are, children see things as new every time they see them. How many hours can a little boy entertain himself with nothing but a toy truck, or a ball, or piece of string? It is so refreshing to know that we can come to Jesus and come to our faith with the same excitement, knowing that there is something new and exciting to be discovered. We can never uncover and know the glory and truth and eternal newness of Jesus; certainly not in this life.

So we must see the Father through Christ with simplicity, purity, and passion, understanding that we can never fully understand, constantly approaching Him in anticipation of rich discovery. And as His children, our love for Him is expressed exactly as we expect (or at least hope for) in ours: obedience. When we were children and teens, without exception, there were times when we resented our parents. Whether it be no dessert after dinner, an unexpected curfew, or waiting a couple extra years to get your ears pierced, we wanted what we wanted, and it was refused. We know now that such discipline was not arbitrary, but that our parents were wiser, knew better, and loved us more than we were able to love ourselves. How much more is God wise, knowing, and loving? If we love God, if we truly trust in Him, we would be fools not to seek His will and submit to it as our own.

O, Blessed Virgin,
who gave birth to the child Jesus,
and from His crib to his cross,
stayed by His side,
holding all things in your wounded heart,
teach us the obedience of God's will.
Wrap us in your arms,
presenting us, your children,
to our heavenly Father,
that we may see Him, know Him,
and, by your example—you, the handmaid of the Lord—love Him.