St. John Paul
frequently referred to the great treasury of the Church from which we can
always draw gifts ever ancient and ever new.
Within this treasury,
in the last century, were added the documents of the Second Vatican Council, of
which the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation is a particular treasure,
known by its Latin title: Dei Verbum – the Word of God. The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she
venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she
unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the
table both of God's word and of Christ's body….. [Op.cit.ch.VI, para.21]
This came to mind
early in the morning when, for spiritual reading, I took up again THE MYSTERY
OF EASTER, by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa: The
very words uttered by Jesus in His life….are raised to a new state by the
resurrection. They become freed from their time limitations and acquire
universal absoluteness. No longer just sapiential or prophetic teaching, they
can be seen for what they are: “words that do not pass away,” the Word of God.
In the context of
“universal absoluteness”, since we know the word of God is “…living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of thoughts and intent of the heart. [Heb.4:12], we should not
simply ‘read’ Sacred Scripture, but hear it as well, for each word, most
importantly each word spoken by Jesus, in its universal absoluteness, living
and powerful, is, by the Holy Spirit, spoken directly to each of us
individually.
As mentioned before,
St. John does not give us the explicit statement to which Jesus begins to reply
in 5:19, nonetheless this great
teaching of Jesus from verse 19 to 47 is more than just a reply: it is
revelation.
v.19=Then Jesus answered and said to them,
“Most assuredly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He
sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.”
While here the Holy
Spirit is not named specifically by Jesus, this is nonetheless a Trinitarian
teaching, for the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is unique,
indivisible – the Three Persons [unique], One God [indivisible] – this is part
of the great revelation within the Gospel accounts of the life and teaching of
Jesus.
This is a comforting
truth: the Three Persons of the Trinity
as One God love-work thus: while we tend
to attribute creation to the Father, redemption to the Son, sanctification to
the Holy Spirit, all divine acts of love are Trinitarian, the work of each
Person is love for us, beyond the human mind to comprehend, and the
dynamic-binding communion of love which makes the Three distinct Persons
simultaneously One God.
This is not some
mathematical conundrum to be solved, not some scientific mystery challenging us
to comprehend, nor is it even a theological enigma to burn out our brains as we
try and ‘get it’!
St. Basil the Great is
very blunt on this point: When the Lord
taught us the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, He did not make
arithmetic part of this gift! He did not say, ‘In the first, second, or third’
or ‘In one, two and three’…There is one God and Father, one Only-Begotten Son,
and one Holy Spirit…..
The Catechism of the
Catholic Church teaches us: The mystery
of the Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is
the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all the other
mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them….The whole history of
salvation is identical with the history of the way and means by which the one
true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit reveals Himself …. ‘and reconciles and
unites with Himself those who turn away from sin’……God’s works reveal who He is
in Himself; the mystery of His inmost being enlightens our understanding of all
His works……[paras. 234, 236] and in para. 256 this beautiful quote from St.
Gregory Nazianzus :…..Each Person
considered in Himself is entirely God…..the Three considered together…I have
not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendour.
V.20=For the Father loves the Son, and shows
Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than
these, that you may marvel.
While I recall these
words from Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, I do not remember exactly from which of his
writings they come, nonetheless they have been in my heart for years: By means of all created things, without
exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. [see Isaiah
64:]
The heavens declare the glory of
God[Ps.18(19)]-creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of
God[Rm.8.19].
The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from
heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by
their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because
God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, His
invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be
understood and perceived in what He has made.
As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did
not accord Him glory as God or give Him thanks. Instead, they became vain in
their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. [Rm.1;1-20]
Today as I write the
news reports the death of Stephan Hawking, among whose works over the years I
read, when published, his A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME and THE GRAND DESIGN.
Hawking, not unlike
countless scientists, philosophers, indeed some people who profess themselves
to be believers, but approach revealed truth with a pick and choose what suits
mentality, struck me, when I finished reading A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, as
someone who, for all his intellectual brilliance, missed it, didn’t get it: IT
being objective truth.
In A Brief History of
Time Hawking notes that: “We find
ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around
us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and
where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?”; and in the Grand
Design asserts: “Because there are laws
such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. It is
not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe
going."
Without the humility
to embrace the Incarnation and the Incarnate One, all of creation, including
ourselves to ourselves, remains ultimately incomprehensible.
We can grasp some of
the components, for example, of matter, but not its totality; we can have a
consciousness of self, but without that knowledge which enables us to fully be
the person we have been created to be, living and moving and having being,
within communion of love with the Most Holy Trinity.
Hawking deliberately
misquoted St. John Paul as saying scientists should not investigate the
universe, when in fact the Holy Father was simply showing them the right way to
do so: Any scientific hypothesis on the
origin of the world, such as the hypothesis of a primitive atom from which
derived the whole of the physical universe, leaves open the problem concerning
the universe's beginning. Science cannot of itself solve this question: there
is needed that human knowledge that rises above physics and astrophysics and
which is called metaphysics; there is needed above all the knowledge that comes
from God's revelation. [St. John Paul, address to the Pontifical Academy of
Science, Oct. 3, 1981]
In his book NEW SEEDS
OF CONTEMPLATION, Thomas Merton teaches: Faith
reaches the intellect not simply through the senses but in a light directly
infused by God.
If we limit the
teaching of Jesus in verses 19 & 20: “Most
assuredly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the
Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the
Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He
will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.”, to some
‘limited’ spiritual/miracles constraint, then we risk, as so many do, having our minds darkened.
While Hawking and
others, scientists and non, since the ideas have entered the common mindset,
assert the universe began with the so-called Big Bang, they also admit they can
only postulate post-bang and have no way of knowing ‘what’ before the bang.
Any child who has ever
popped a balloon or blown a bubble to watch it fly and pop, knows
instinctively, sees, experiences ‘what’ before the pop, and the simple
objective fact 1 + 1 is required for a pop: 1-something to pop and 1- a means
of making the thing pop.
Therefore, to assert
that any aspect of the universe, of creation, including Angels and human
persons, self-create is sheer nonsense of darkened minds.
The guided by the Holy
Spirit writers of Genesis used their observations and experiences of their
chronological time in which they found themselves and cooperated with the
actual grace they were given to understand, and articulate, the objective-truth
meaning in the treasury of revelation as they wrote.
In this great teaching
of Jesus being meditated upon, if we sit still with open minds and hearts,
hearing His words, what opens before us in “…what
He sees the Father do….”, extends way beyond and before the so-called Big
Bang, extends beyond any part of the macro or micro aspects of creation,
including wonders and marvels, perhaps even other living beings elsewhere in
the cosmos, medicines, technologies, WE have not yet found/discovered, but
Jesus has seen, Jesus knows all about.
To be so open avoids
hemming in any words of Jesus with our own limited attempts to reduce
everything to the ‘spiritual’, for all Jesus teaches is that, to be sure, but
much more: He teaches, truth, life, the way to communion of love: with the Holy
Trinity, with each other, with our selves.
In all this marvelous
work which we experience, hopefully in awe and gratitude, when we hear the cry
of a newborn, watch a shooting star, see love for us in the eyes of another,
this work which the Father does, the Son does, the Holy Spirit does, while we
dwell as pilgrims for a time within the cosmos on planet earth, a temporary
dwelling, a dwelling within a cosmos which itself will pass away, we are
endowed with the gift of God’s most wonderous work: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the
Son gives life to whom He will.” [v.21]
The Resurrection of Christ was God’s supreme
and wholly marvelous work. ~
St. Augustine.
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