SUBSTANCE OF GOD’S “ALL”
1. The prayers of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass speak eloquently of what human beings know about God. The prayers of Mass likewise acknowledge all that we cannot comprehend about God. The height, depth, length and breadth of God’s “all” is unknown to us. The substance of God’s “all” is beyond our understanding.
2. God is perfect existence. God is one in being and knowing. The human person is the superlative design of God who said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. [Gen 1:26] God gave his human creature an immortal soul and placed him above all living things of the world. Therefore in the divine likeness, he possesses intellect and will. From infancy the human person is self-aware, conscious of his being and knowing, and knowing that he knows. An infant child sees you smiling at him. He smiles in return. He knows that he knows your smile.
BEYOND IRONY
3. The cold and lifeless moon is not given to lovers only for its nocturnal beauty or as an inspiration for kisses and smiles. Far more important is the humbling realization that our sun, like all the stars in the cosmos, is blind to its own light. Active but not alive, it cannot comprehend its own existence. The blind planet earth receives the blind sun’s heat and light. Not one piece, part, emission or particle of either sphere knows that the other exists.
4. Though enlightened by knowledge and experience, man's contingent being and imperfect knowing cannot function sufficiently without God in whom all life and light originate.[2] It is beyond irony how a human being will stand in the dark to admire the moon’s anemic light and never reflect on his own existential vulnerability and the fact that everything he has is borrowed. Man's willful refusal to seek the God who sees and knows all propels him away from the divine source sustaining his own humanity.
LIKE A DYING STAR
5. His conscious knowing that he knows diminishes. Without being able to grasp the meaning of his own personhood, he renounces the value and worth of his own and all human life. For a time, his exterior vigor conceals a growing incapacity to sustain the warmth of generative love and the radiance of meaningful relationships. He is no longer cognizant of his own priceless attributes nor does he look for them in others. Like a dying star whose vital energy has dissipated, his activity and potential remain beautiful to behold until the very instant he collapses in upon himself.
6. When man rejects God, his Origin and Destiny, when he rejects the Divine Knowing which perfects his flawed existence, when he lives as if he did not know that God exists, his world and potential close in on him. By rejecting the height and depth of God, the length and breadth of his life contracts. He becomes lost in a universe of sightless, unknowing, dead things. This caused the apostle to observe, "men love darkness rather than light". [Jn 3:19]
FORESHADOWING THE DAY
7. Man’s sinful nature is incapable of self-repair. Having clothed his immortal soul with sin, he is powerless to throw the garment off. Moreover, the ancient serpent is not content to merely deceive the human creature. The evil one wants to put out his spiritual eyes, blinding him to the sin and its consequences. Few things bring Satan more glee than to ensnare sinful souls who have no comprehension of why they are suffering so terribly.
8. Understand why God said “our image and likeness” not my. The inclusive pronoun “our” of Gen 1:26] is a foreshadowing of the day when human beings would come to know God as a trinity of divine persons whose procession of perfect love and relationship, giving and receiving is the archetype of all creation. Therefore, bearing our creator’s image and likeness, we image God best in the procession of human relationships when we give and receive love most perfectly.
“LIGHT HAS COME”
9. Human beings best reveal in themselves God's image and likeness when their relationships are selfless and generative. If man desires perfection, he must turn toward God who "reveals deep and mysterious things". [Dan 2:22] When Sacred Scripture discloses that the "light has come into the world" [Jn 3:19], it refers to Christ whose mission is the perfection and deliverance of man:
...THAT CHRIST may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. [Eph 3:17-19]
10. The Lord smiles upon the elderly Abram, directing him to contemplate the horizons of the earth. In like manner, the Father confers upon this righteous man the length and breadth of his divine blessings. Abram's barren wife Sarai will bear a son. God bestows a new name upon Abram.[3] Henceforth, he is to be Abraham, the spiritual father of a nation of faith whose descendants will outnumber the stars.
MAN IS CAPABLE
11. Witnesses to the glory of Perfect Existence, Peter, James and John experience the luminous, sovereign majesty of God's pure being and pure knowing. They see and hear that which was from the beginning. [cf. 1Jn1:1] Overcome by the light of Christ transfigured, Peter cries out, "Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah." [Mt 17:4] The three apostles witnessed and appraised God's transcendent power[4] :
BUT THE Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. [Jn 14:26]
ALL AUTHORITY in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. [Mt 28:18-20]
12. And like the infant child, we see the things of God. Moreover, we know what we see, not only in its own nature, but because the form of what we see is imprinted in our souls. The great miracle is the human person who, knowing that he knows, responds graciously when God reveals himself. [5] Thus, human beings know the smile of God, and we smile in return. Yet, for a short while, Lord, we must remain a vessels of clay to "show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us". [2Cor 4:7] We must bear the light of Christ willingly and without hesitation.
WHAT ARE THE POSSIBILITIES?
13. May God who said “let there be light” and “separated the light from the darkness” [Gen 1:3-4] reveal to you the splendor of his divine Love. May Christ the Morning Star illumine your mind and heart with the splendor of his Word and Eucharist. May the Holy Spirit who “moved over the face of the waters” [Gen 1:2] grace your immortal soul with “righteousness and peace and joy”. [Rom 14:17] If, in all his powerlessness, the infant at your breast knows that he knows your smile, then what are the possibilities for you, O man of this world, to know the God who created you in his image and likeness?
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[1] Cycle A /Second Sunday of Lent /Gen 12:1-4 /2Tim 1:8-10 /Mt 17:1-9.
[2] "And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light." [Mt 17:2-3]
[3] "No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations." [Gen 17:5] "I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore." [Gen 22:17]
[4] "I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'Seek me in chaos.' I the Lord speak the truth, I declare what is right." [Isa 45:19]
[5] "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined." [Isa 9:2]
