Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/052212.cfm

Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

Among the many mysteries of our faith are the names of what God has promised to us. Is it heaven, eternal life, salvation, justification, vindication, meaning, purpose, love, healing, wholeness or something else altogether? How about “they should know you, the only true God and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ?”

Wisdom and knowledge are also among the promises. Eros is usually described as a passionate desire for sensual love, but we also have an erotic desire for knowledge. We would not be fully human if we did not want to know more. We have built enormous schools and a worldwide infrastructure of sciences in the pursuit of knowledge. In fact we want to know more than the human mind can comprehend. We want to know God!

When we speak of faith, we speak of revelation. The Lord reveals himself to us, beginning especially with Abraham and continuing throughout “Revelation History;” through Moses, David, the Prophets, John the Baptist and Jesus. But, as brilliant as our sciences are, even our theological science, we could not know God if God did not speak directly to us.

God wants to be known, and that why we have this erotic desire for God. Knowledge of God is not a simple “how-dee-do!” It is intensely personal, a two-edged sword cutting between soul and marrow, which opens both the individual and the community to deep transformation.

In the knowledge of God I come to know myself, and I recognize that much of what I thought was myself was sinful nonsense. In the wisdom of my 63 years I think of my 33 year old self and think, “How could I have been so stupid?” And, I suspect I’ll think the same of my 63 year old self if I live to 93! But I will be the same person, familiar, beautiful, sinful and devout.

Likewise, in 2012 I wonder how our Founding Fathers could abide slavery. It made no sense whatsoever, by their own standards! But what will our descendents a century from now find morally incomprehensible in us?

To know God is to know oneself better not because I am God but because God is the Light in whom I find myself.

 

Yet I am more fascinated by the light, mysterious, ineffable, beautiful, merciful and good. As Saint Francis said so often, “You are good, all good, supreme good!” To know God is our delight; it is indeed eternal life.