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.