God's revelation and human understanding Archives < Page 3 of 3

Dramatis Personae

In my copy of the collected works of William Shakespeare, every play is preceded by a list giving the title and/or name of each of the characters that appear in it. The Latin label for the list is “Dramatis Personae.”
The words literally mean the “Masks of the Play.” This is because of the ancient Greek and Roman custom of an actor wearing a mask to identify the role, part, character, or (as we now say) person he was representing.
Now, of course, we rarely use masks, but we do disguise the actor using costumes and sometimes elaborate makeup to help identify and support the role and part he or she is playing.
For Shakespeare, and in ancient times as well, theatrical companies would be relatively small, so many actors would play more than one role—and, of course, would attempt to change their voice, mannerisms, and style as appropriate.
By now, as words and their meanings evolve, by “person” we usually mean the individual human being in his or her uniqueness—which more than includes the role in life he or she plays and the varied ways he or she relates to other persons.
It’s very hard to describe the uniqueness of any one human being. Each person is perceived differently by others, each person has a different part to play regarding every other person.
Our identity is not only described in terms of age, gender, complexion, height, weight, citizenship, ethnicity, health, employment, and other such factors but also by our interrelationships with others, the different roles we play.
A person simultaneously can be a child to a parent and a parent to children, a student to a teacher and a teacher to a student, a friend to some and an enemy to others, an inspirer to one person and a tempter to another—the possibilities are endless.

In my day, as children preparing for First Communion we had to learn—in the sense of memorize—questions and their answers from the Baltimore Catechism. The ones about the unity and trinity of God were hard to understand, especially:
Q: “How many persons are there in God?” A: “In God there are three Divine persons, really distinct, and equal in all things—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Of course, as little kids we weren’t at the stage where we could learn about the etymology of the word, “person.” Even if we had been, it still wouldn’t have and couldn’t have adequately explained the mystery of the unity and trinity of God—but it does help a little.
“Three Divine persons” does not refer to three entirely separate, individual, and unique divine beings—but it does at very least suggest three different roles God plays and three different kinds of relationships God has to human persons and all the rest of creation
– God as the loving begetter, maker, creator, and source of all that exists;
– God as the intervenor in human history who uniquely reveals himself and his love through the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus;
– God as the sustainer, guide, and inspirer of our lives, the interior wellspring of our creativity, strength, and love.
Having the Dramatis Personae preceding the play is curious—knowing the cast of characters beforehand isn’t necessary to understand what follows. The play itself gradually reveals the players and their roles.
Life’s like that!

25 August 2019

“Macroscoping” vs. “Microscoping”

I can remember the day in my high school Biology class when I first looked through a microscope at a drop of pond water and saw swarms of little creatures like amoebas and paramecia. What a revelation! An ordinary drop of water hosting myriads of otherwise almost invisible life forms!
A microscope enables us to see deeper into the underlying reality of things than our eyes unaided. But, paradoxically, the deeper we look and the more we see, the blinder we can become to the “overlying” reality!
To verify the historicity of a painting, a microscopic analysis of flake of pigment can be decisive, but the microscope is blind to the beauty of the greater reality involved.
The microscopic examination of a small sample of a patient’s blood can alert the doctor to issues affecting the patient’s health—but not to the state of mind and the overall concerns of the patient’s life.
To fully understand a person requires an opposite process (a “macroscopic examination”) embracing his/her birth, development, and history; immediate and extended family, culture, and education; life experience and relationships; hopes and aspirations; successes and failures; etc..
There are a variety of professionals who are specialized in most of these and other ways, but how does one weave together all their varied insights and analyses and get to the “overlying” reality? (Remember the story of the blind men describing an elephant.)
Whether it’s microscopic or “macroscopic”, both are necessary and important for an adequate insight into and explanation of anything and everything.
The situation of philosophers and theologians is similar to that of scientists and physicians. The greater and deeper their insights, no matter how valuable they may be, the harder it may be to focus on the “big picture.”

Take liturgical history for example: The Didache (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) is a first century document that describes what Christians do on the Lord’s day. It calls it Eucharist (Thanksgiving):

Say over the cup: “We give you thanks, Father, for the holy vine of David, your servant, which you made known to us through Jesus your servant. To you be glory forever.”
Over the broken bread say: “We give you thanks, Father, for the life and knowledge which you have revealed to us through Jesus your servant. To you be glory forever.
As this broken bread scattered on the mountains was gathered and became one, so too, may your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. For the glory and power are yours through Jesus Christ forever.”

This simple “macro” description is very different from the “micro” analysis of the essence of the Eucharist made by Thomas Aquinas explaining transubstantiation.
I heard this classic Thomistic theology echoed in a lovely parish Sunday Mass I recently attended. The Church was crowded, the celebration very beautiful, and everyone fully participating. In his homily, the sincere young priest chose to emphasize that Catholics have something that Protestants lack: “the actual, the very body and blood of Jesus present on the altar.”
Scientists, philosophers, and theologians frequently tend to be great “microscopers,” but that’s not enough; we need great “macroscopers” too.

28 July 2019

A Shortage of Metaphysicians

Most people would agree that we have a much greater supply of physicists in the world than meta-physicists (or metaphysicians, as they’re usually called) — that is, if one has any idea at all what a meta-physicist is.
   “Metaphysics” relates to the written works of Aristotle. Sometimes “meta” is taken to mean “after,” since his book Metaphysics follows the one called Physics. Alternatively, “meta” can be construed as “beyond,” in the sense of what lies beyond Physics.
   In Aristotle’s day, Physics referred more to what we today understand as Science — the study and seeking understanding of the entire physical, material world.
   Modern philosophers and scientists tend to extol the discipline and purity of science and scientific methodology, sometimes to the extreme of denying that there is meaning, sense, or value to anything that cannot be measured or detected by our senses.
   Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 1988 series of ten one-hour films, “The Decalogue”, originally commissioned for Polish TV, tells a series of modern stories loosely based on the Ten Commandments. The first is about a university professor who trusts the reliability of the computer and teaches his young son how to use it.
   The boy wants to try out his new pair of ice skates. Having checked scientific data on the computer about freezing and thawing rates based on recent local temperatures, the father judges that the ice on the river is thick enough for safety — but the ice breaks and the boy drowns.
   The film dramatically suggests that measured data about the physical world and scientific conclusions can fail us — that Fate, as Kieslowski calls it, is an important part of life.

   As Shakespeare says it: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
   Interestingly, scientific theories sometimes go far beyond immediately measurable data, the normal boundaries of science.
   For example, the “big bang” hypothesis — that the entire universe and everything in it has resulted from a primeval explosion of proto-matter and energy — is widely accepted, even though it is not proven and belies common sense.
   Like the big bang, other theoretical constructs such as black matter or the indeterminacy of the nature of subatomic “particles,” help scientists bring order to and make sense of known data — even though they involve insights and leaps of thought that in classic terminology “go beyond,” that are metaphysical.
   One of these leaps unknown, ignored or rejected by most modern scientists, was that of the famous Jesuit paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He felt that random mutation and natural selection alone cannot explain the development of the universe, especially of living beings and humankind.
   The only way he could make sense of the nature of the world and the direction of life was his insight that there is an “interiority” to inanimate and animate beings, a spiritual component. For him, evolution embraces the growth of this spiritual component; all creation tends toward an ultimate point of spiritual development and convergence — in religious terms, the reign of God.
   Meta-physicists have keen insights into the nature of the universe; believers do, too.

(Published as “Meta-physicists” in
one, 31:6, November 2005)

O My God!

Rightly or wrongly, when I was a child in school, I was taught that in 1492 Columbus “discovered” America. We were always learning about great discoverers, but they never included the one who “discovered” God.
According to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, it was a discovery made a few thousand years ago by a nomadic Mesopotamian shepherd called Abraham — at least that was the beginning of the discovery, for the discovery of the one God was a long, gradual process.
Abraham lived in a society where the existence of many gods was taken for granted. From his point of view, he was called by a god who promised great things to him in exchange for his special worship.
Isaac reverenced this same family god as the “God of Abraham”; Jacob, in turn, worshiped the “God of Abraham and Isaac.”
When Moses sought to know how he should identify the god who spoke to him on Sinai, he was told it was “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”
Moses, too, grew up in a world of many gods, but his great insight — the great revelation he received — was that they were all of no account compared to the God of his fathers.
The God of Moses demanded exclusive worship: “You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves … you shall not bow down before them or worship them.”
It was not until centuries later that the prophet Isaiah taught that other gods were not only of no account but that they did not even exist.

We are the heirs of these great discoverers; their insights should be our precious inheritance. Alas, it isn’t so.
In practice, worship of family, clan, tribal, and national gods still continues in our modern world — although it isn’t called by that name.
For example, in parts of the Middle East honor demands that a sexual misadventure by a woman be punished by her family with death. This is placing family “honor” before God and his revealed will.
A few years ago in Rwanda, Catholic Hutus and Tutsis slaughtered each other for no better reason than tribal dominance — clan loyalties were more important than God.
The world still remembers the horrors wrought by Hitler’s National Socialism in the name of Aryan purity. What a jealous idol Nazism was, for millions of believers were killed in its name.
Even though Christian communities flourished in South India before classical Brahmanism was established there, extreme Indian nationalists forbid conversions to Christianity because it is a “foreign” religion. For them, the nation must be placed over all.
And you and I, what idols do we worship — possessions, security, health, esteem, power? If we carve anything out of life and make it our overriding value, we betray the greatest discovery of all — the loving God.

(Published in
CNEWA World, 30:1, January 2004)

Lover’s Leap

A traditional story element in old romance novels is the lover’s leap. Many a tale features a wounded or frustrated lover deciding to end his or her life by leaping to death from a cliff or precipice.
Even though the death may be depicted with great sentimentality as a heroic decision, it is, of course, nothing more than suicide. Also, these leaps are chosen for selfish reasons — the lover’s inability to endure rejection or frustration of not possessing the heart’s desire.
Actually, it’s a somewhat contradictory image of love. Usually love is something you leap into, not away from.
Once, while serving as priest in the inner-city, I went for a walk in a park. I saw a young father playing with his little son. He would place the tottering tot on the back of a park bench and then stand in front of him with open arms.
The little boy would leap forward into the air, unafraid, with a smile on his face and a cry of delight. His father would swoop him up in his arms before he hit the ground. Again and again, the boy begged to jump. It was a great game for him.
This is my favorite image for God — the loving father who stands before us with open arms as we totter on the brink of so many and such great falls in our lives — the loving father who swoops us up in his arms lest we dash our lives to the ground.
Alas, we adults have lost the innocent and unreflective confidence of little children. It’s not so easy to abandon all our life securities and leap into the unknown — it’s not so easy trusting and leaping into the invisible arms of God.

Jesus taught us the greatest commandment is, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” St. John, in his first letter, challenges us with the question, how do we love God whom we do not see?
Loving God is not about seeing. Seeing and insight are matters of the head, not of the heart. Seeing is how we reach out and bring the real world to ourselves.
Loving is mostly a matter of the heart, not the head. Loving is how we reach out and give ourselves to the world and entrust ourselves to God.
How do we love God? We do it best by leaping into his love — by surrendering all our securities and certainties — by letting go of all our dearest possessions, be they tangible or intangible — by leaping into the fearful unknown with our eyes of faith fixed on him.
Whatever tottering place I find myself in, I’m there because his providence put me there. In him, and in his love, I live and move and have my being. I can’t maintain the uneasy balance of my life unaided. But why worry? The love that placed me there will catch me lest I fall.
By loving we make that supreme leap of faith and trust — we hurl ourselves with a smile on our faces and a cry of delight into the arms of Love himself.
I hope the ongoing story of your life always includes a lover’s leap.

(Published in
CNEWA World, 29:4, July 2003)

Awful New Year

Here are my resolves for this new year: To do my very best to be an awful person and to behave as awfully as I can.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t plan to be awful in the colloquial sense of the word — that is, to be exceedingly bad or unpleasant, ugly, or the like.
To be awful means, literally, to be full of awe. Here’s the primary meaning my dictionary gives to the words:

awe [from the Middle English age, aghe, awe] A mixed feeling of reverence, fear and wonder, caused by something majestic, sublime, sacred, etc.

awful [from the Middle English awful and agheful] Inspiring awe; highly impressive.

I don’t know about you, but my life is usually too busy — and not always about things of great importance. As soon as my average workday starts, it becomes an unending litany of doing:
Thank God for the new day. Exercise. Wash, dress, take out the dog. Feed the dog, have breakfast, wash the dishes, put out garbage. Say formal morning prayers. Mass.
Go to the office, read e-mails, process correspondence, answer the phone. Meet with staff and visitors. Plan more to do.
After work, go home, open mail, pay bills, read the paper, eat supper, feed the dog. Perhaps, watch news or a video, make a few phone calls.
Finally, read some Scripture and maybe something serious from the great unread pile in my room. Take out the dog, pray evening prayers, get ready for bed.

My typical day is all about doing things. Except for tiny glimmers of grace that, thanks be to God, tickle my awareness in the midst of all this busyness and doing, there is little awe in my day. How awful not to be awful!
What to do to have a more awful life? First, stop doing! Awe isn’t something I do, it’s something that can happen to me when I stop doing and concentrate on being.
Awe may occur if I can halt my planning, implementing, controlling, managing — if I can sit back and allow awareness of what the Lord has done and is doing to impinge upon my self-centered preoccupations.
What’s the starting point for awe? It’s anything that is of God. It could be my very self — the mystery that I ever came to be, that I live this very day, that I have the gifts, abilities, and opportunities that I do.
The mystery of any created, existing thing can be a trigger for awe — a flower blooming, a baby growing, a landscape of beauty, starry skies, the complexity of DNA, an inexplicable new idea, you.
O.K., O.K.! I know what you’re talking about. It’s meditation; it’s contemplation. It refers to the classical distinction between the active and the passive. It’s about the action of the Spirit.
Whatever you call it doesn’t matter. The point is, I just want to have a really awful new year, and I hope and pray from the bottom of my heart that you do, too.

(Published in
CNEWA World, 29:1, January 2003)

Heart of the Matter

Before my 95-year-old Jewish aunt died a few weeks ago, she asked me to conduct her funeral service. What to say? After all, I’ve had a lot of experience with Catholic funerals, although not much with Jewish.
My aunt was a very good person, a believer in God, but not what you would call an observant Jew. Her family hardly ever attended synagogue. While her Orthodox in-laws were alive, she and my uncle kept a kosher household. After their deaths, they stopped.
What makes a good Jew? The Bible is filled with laws and regulations besides the Ten Commandments. Other Jewish traditions developed over the centuries.
At the time of Jesus, a question put to many of the great rabbis was, “What is the greatest commandment of the Law?” In fact, it was put to Jesus himself — and his answer echoed that of other great rabbis.
Jesus said the greatest and first commandment of the Law was, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The second, he said, is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
“The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments,” was his conclusion.
How to measure my aunt’s life? She never went to services, she didn’t observe the great Jewish feasts or fasts, she no longer kept a kosher home—but, as I told the few relatives and friends gathered for her funeral, she was a good Jew.

For the heart of the matter is love. She always kept the greatest of the commandments of the Law. She loved God and she loved her neighbor. She was a woman of love.
Had she been a Christian, I could have said the same thing with the same logic. After all, Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”
His disciple John explained, “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love . . . he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another . . . if we love one another, God remains in us . . .”
In a way my aunt also could have been considered a good Muslim. After all, what is the heart of the matter for Muslims? To seek and submit to the will of the one God — something that both good Jews and Christians do, too.
For example, the Letter to the Hebrews describes the mission of Jesus with, “Behold, I come to do your will, O God.” And, Jesus himself taught, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
Are there differences among Jews, Christians, and Muslims? Of course. But, since all aspire to stand before the one and same God some day, why not accentuate the positive now—and get to the heart of the matter.

(Published in
CNEWA World, 28:3, May 2002)

Well Grounded

Pope John Paul’s encyclical, The Gospel of Life, released on 30 March, contains both an impassioned plea for respect for human life, dignity, and rights and a clear exposition of absolute and nonnegotiable values which must be the basis for all practical moral judgments.
Immediately some people reacted to the Pope’s teaching by saying, “Well, that’s his point of view, but I don’t agree.”
That, of course, is exactly what the encyclical was all about. The Holy Father was strongly teaching that not everything is relative.
God made us to be free, so we’re free to make whatever choices we wish — but, not all choices are equal. Some choices are right and some choices are wrong.
In the contemporary world, what seems preeminently acceptable is to build your life on shifting sands. The one who chooses to stand on certain and solid ground is criticized as rigid, old-fashioned, and closed-minded.
In the book of Exodus, it tells how, when Moses first came to Mount Sinai, God appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush. As Moses approached, God told him, “the place where you stand is holy ground.”
It was later, at that same mountain, that God made a covenant with Moses and the children of Israel and gave them a code to live by — the Ten Commandments.
Before Sinai, the value of human life and respect for human dignity and rights was a matter of the customs of each society or of the will and decisions of each ruler.
After Sinai, the value of human life and respect for human dignity and rights was a matter of the revealed will of God.

Now, as we confront anguishing decisions involving respect for human life, dignity, and rights — whether they concern mothers at risk or unborn children, threatened regimes or oppressed peoples — we have certain, solid, and holy grounds on which to take our stand.
To be well grounded, of course, does not give us automatic or infallible solutions to all problems. But, it does give us clear and sure principles to utilize in the search for those solutions.
I don’t know how best to overhaul the American welfare system, but I do know that you and I may not be indifferent to the stranger in great need whom we encounter on our path
I don’t know how best to achieve peace in Bosnia or Azerbaijan, but I do know that deliberately to violate, maim, or kill any innocent man, woman, or child is certainly and always inadmissible.
Even if we have no solutions to offer, we shouldn’t be afraid to witness to the principles which guide us in seeking to find them.
When Moses led the people out of bondage and slavery in Egypt, he brought them to the holy ground that had been revealed to him.
On that holy ground they discovered the rules which would ensure their freedom and found the principles to shape their lives
We are their heirs. That is our inheritance.

(Published in
Catholic Near East, 21:3, May 1995)