3rd Sunday of Advent (B) 2014

3^rd. Sunday of Advent (B)

(Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11; 1st. Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28) 

Advent is a time of expectation … what are we to look for, what should we prepare ourselves to expect?

On reading today’s Gospel I was somewhat surprised at St. John’s version of the words between John the Baptist and the priests and Levites from Jerusalem.  John does not present the Baptist reported by all three of the Synoptic Gospels who tell of him saying that though he himself baptized with water, the One to come would baptize with the Holy Spirit, and also -- according to Matthew and Luke -- with fire.

Now the cause of this omission is not something I want to discuss here, but the result of it might be of significant help for us today, since, undoubtedly, the mention of the Holy Spirit connotes supreme, sublime, power, while that of fire confirms that impression of power and colours it, so to speak, with one of threat.  John’s Gospel, on the other hand, simply reports the Baptist as saying:

I baptize with water; but there is One among you Whom you do not recognize, the One Who is coming after me, Whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.

There we have it: just pure expectation … indeed, tantalizing expectation because the expected One is already present, among them at that very moment -- someone wonderfully holy -- and yet, they are not seeing Him!  Why?

Here, Mother Church in her Spirit-gifted wisdom comes to direct our Advent expectancy, for she sets before us a most beautiful passage from the prophet Isaiah:

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, and to announce a year of favour from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God.

According to that, we are expecting One the Lord has endowed with His Spirit to bring glad tidings to the lowly, bestow healing, restore liberty and grant freedom: all favours from the Lord in vindication of His people.  No threatening mention of supreme power, nor one of destructive -- though purging -- fire …. Just Someone wonderful, coming peaceably, and bringing with Him so much that is totally desirable and longed-for in those days and in our present state.

Now notice what joy, gladness, and blessing results for the recipients of His gifts:

All who see them shall acknowledge them as a race the LORD has blessed.  I rejoice heartily in the LORD, in my God is the joy of my soul; For He has clothed me with a robe of salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice, Like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem, like a bride bedecked with her jewels.  As the earth brings forth its plants, and a garden makes its growth spring up, so will the Lord GOD make justice and praise spring up before all the nations.

And how wondrously did Isaiah, having begun with the many:

All who see them shall acknowledge them as a race the LORD has blessed

continue with words referring to but one … a woman most beautiful … as if he knew, prophetically, that only Mary, the Immaculate Maid of Nazareth, would be able to fully receive and possess all those blessings from the Lord.  For all that, however, since she is one of us, she represents us, and all faithful disciples of Jesus do indeed receive their measure of His blessings.  Of that, Mother Church assures us with her choice of the second reading taken from St. Paul’s exhortation to his converts in Thessali:

Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in all circumstances give thanks.  May the God of peace make you perfectly holy: (for He) the One Who calls you is faithful and He will also accomplish it.

I believe all of us will wholeheartedly agree that Mary, our Mother, is indeed rejoicing in the Lord as depicted by Isaiah and in accord with all our readings today; but the question is, does she indeed represent us therein, does our experience of the Christian faith and of life in the world today cause us similar heartfelt rejoicing as befits Mary’s true children?

Without doubt, it did and does bring such joy and happiness to God’s saints and Mother Church’s most committed members; again, it can bring and does offer such joy and happiness to all faithful disciples of Jesus and sincere members of the Church.  But why, indeed, do we come across so many lapsed or lapsing Catholics, hear so often of Christians, who are unsure disciples of Jesus, or dissatisfied with their experience of faithful living?

We should look again at Isaiah’s reading today, for he rightly foresaw and portrayed the great glory and abounding goodness and generosity of the One to come; however, he also was prophetically endowed and enabled to appreciate that only a unique individual -- the Immaculate Mary of Nazareth -- would allow the Lord to freely bestow on her all those heavenly blessings.  What then, hinders so many Catholics and Christians, from being faithful enough, willing enough, open enough, hungry and empty enough, to follow in the steps of our Mother, the handmaid of the Lord?

Let me just give you a short passage from a recent book about the experiences of one journeying in the Caucasus (the area of Grozny in Chechnya) where there are lots of Christian sects to be found:

Before going to church, Sergei explained how he would call on those in the community whom he thought he might have offended. He would ask their forgiveness.  It took time but he didn’t mind because he loved to talk and he was able to go to church happy.  “It’s difficult in those services because they’re so long.  They go on and on, for hours!  You stand and stand and you can hardly go on standing.  But then afterwards you come home and you feel not just clean in your soul but in your body as well and you’re all dressed up and your wife looks beautiful and everything else looks beautiful too.”

In our modern, affluent, Western society many do not experience their own Church-going as did Sergei: they seem to find regular Sunday observance a burden, even when they do not find it also a bore.  Perhaps the difference is at least partly due to the fact that Sergei made “going to Church” something special:  it involved being at peace with others, and required that he take greater care with his dress for the honour of God.  Many members of our Western culture, on the other hand, having their minds filled with money matters and the many varied opportunities available to them for their enjoyment of it, easily find themselves not even noticing harm done to others in the general struggle for success; and, thinking that they are doing God a favour by attending Church on Sunday, would scoff at the very idea of what they would call “dressing up” to come before His Presence.

Now, that is not something I want to enter into here, but there can be no doubt that the joy and peace Sergei experienced after Church on Sunday was, as I said, in some way related to his efforts to make that day special; and that is in perfect accord with a dictum of St. John of the Cross: ‘where there is no love put love and you will find love’. 

Yes, People of God, during Advent the true disciple not only hopes for future joy, but can even aspire to experience, here and now, something of that joy which is described by the prophet Isaiah.

However, John the Baptist, giving clear testimony to the Lord, used words that express precisely why many contemporary Catholics find too little joy in their religious observance:

There is One among you Whom you do not recognize, the One who is coming after me, Whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.

John’s words: “there is One among you Whom you do not recognize” are, sadly, still too true for many Catholics and Christians, although in a manner somewhat different from that intended by John.  John was saying to the crowds on the banks of the Jordan, where he was immersing penitents in the waters flowing by, that they did not know, were not aware of, could not recognize, the Holy One standing in their midst.  Most Catholics and Christians today, however, do know, are aware of, Jesus, in that sense.  Where they fail in knowledge of the Lord however, is in the fact that they have no personal relationship with Him: their minds know of Him, but their hearts are not attuned to Him, nor are their lives lived with Him or for Him.  Their knowledge of the Lord in their midst is merely objective, not personal. 

Now, it is indeed necessary to know the truth of and about Jesus, because any relationship with Him has to be based upon reality open to our minds, which is why Mother Church insists that her catechetical, scriptural, and dogmatic teaching be based on accurate scholarship, backed up by philosophical and scientific truth, and exemplified by authentic Catholic and Christian spirituality.  Such true teaching about the reality of faith, however, is meant to enable us to aspire and attain to personal contact and living communion with the Lord, in and through the Scriptures and sacraments of Mother Church and the intimacy of personal prayer; for only such sincerity and commitment can lead to real love for, and joyful fulfilment in, the Lord Jesus.

In our modern sophisticated social structure, money and education are readily available, and consequently we are inclined to self-satisfaction; and, having no real, basic needs of a material kind, we easily imagine that we have no spiritual needs either.   Because our experience of the world seems to offer everything for relatively easy taking, many are unwilling to make efforts to satisfy spiritual needs of which they are almost unaware.  Therefore they do not search for Jesus: their Bible is rarely opened, let alone studied; their reception of Holy Communion is routine and perfunctory; and since the house of God is no house of prayer for them, Jesus is left in splendid isolation in the tabernacle. It is because of such things that the divine truth in the Church’s teaching, and the heavenly grace available through her sacraments, bring forth but little fruit in the lives of many.

However, it is lack of personal prayer that is the most fundamental failing in most nominally Christian and Catholic lives, and St. Matthew, quoting Isaiah

, gives us the reason:

Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.

Gross, coarse, are the hearts of too many to hear the Lord speaking with them, whether He be seeking to guide and encourage, or admonishing and warning them. For a society where normality it too often considered boring and excess routinely craved; where joy is inconceivable without pleasure and peace unbearable without excitement; there is little opportunity for the voice of the Lord to make itself heard, perhaps even less possibility that He will be appreciated or understood.   Too little good soil into which the divine seed can fall and take root; no humble mind or longing heart where divine love can take hold and flower. 

People of God, seek Jesus more and more; Advent is a time for joy, peace, and hope.  His promises are true and His coming is at hand; it is we ourselves we must indeed attend to but not despair of, because He comes with gifts to offer: not to those imagining themselves worthy to receive them, but to those aware of their need, and wanting and willing to accept them: wanting and willing to turn away from themselves and embrace Him on His terms, willing to forget self and to serve God and their neighbour.

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.  In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Refrain from every kind of evil.

He Who is to come shall come; He will not delay.  But my just one shall live by faith, and if he draws back I take no pleasure in him.  (Hebrews 10:37-38)

           

                        

2nd Sunday of Advent Year B 2014

 2^nd. Sunday of Advent (B)  

               

(Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; 2^nd. Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8)

John came baptizing in the Jordan and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins to those members of God’s Chosen People who were sufficiently religious and humble to want to hear him.   This was his message:

One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of His sandals. I have baptized you with water; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets of Israel -- indeed, as Jesus said, the greatest of all those born of woman -- was sent to immediately precede Jesus and  personally introduce Him to His People, and John fulfilled that commission by proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  And that, People of God, is what makes us Christians and Catholics: the fact that we have believed in and been baptized into Jesus from Whom -- as members of His Body in the Church -- we have received the gift of His Holy and life-giving Spirit which has made us adopted children of the Father, aspiring to and hoping for eternal fulfilment in His heavenly Kingdom.  It is the Holy Spirit within us Who enables us to cry out “Abba”, “Father” in response to the One God Who not only speaks to us but also with us, thereby enabling us, even here on earth, to share in some measure the Heavenly Communion which is the life and love of the Most Holy Trinity: being loved by the Lord Who died and now lives for us, cherished by the Spirit Who guides and forms us, and called by and to the Father Who will glorify us.  John the Baptist was brief and to the point, in a few words giving us the essential characteristic of the coming Messiah Whom he John would point out:

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

The person of John is no longer with us, but his words remain for all time as the only preparation whereby we can fittingly receive the Lord into our lives:

John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus Himself, indeed, when later on as a man He began His public ministry, simply took up John’s call in His own very first words, as St. Mark tells us (1:14-15) :

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:  “This is the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Now, there are many who regard that call to repentance proclaimed in Mother Church today as over the top and excessive, looking for sin, for fault and guilt in all aspects of our lives.  Should not our lives as Catholics and Christians, they would  say, be characterised rather by manifest joy in the Lord?

Yes, it is possible for certain people who specialise in being their own spiritual guide to become obsessive in their introspection as they search for sin to be repented, but such a mere and unhealthy possibility can in no way justify any general teaching that would proclaim a sort of truce with sin; for neuroticism is no true fruit of authentic Catholic teaching or practice. 

Again, it is most true that our lives should bespeak our joy in the Lord, but such witness is not one that can be ‘stirred-up’ and ‘put on’ in a clap-happy display of emotional excitement.

For the authentic Christian understanding and practice of repentance we need to look closely at our readings today in order to appreciate Mother Church’s teaching in this matter.   What was it that John said?  What had Isaiah proclaimed?  What was Peter’s warning?

John said ‘repent’ first and then -- to Andrew and another of his disciples -- ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ just as Jesus was passing by. Such is the composite nature of conversion, repentance: first turn from sin, then turn to the Lord.

Turn from sin, start to correct the ravages of sin in your life.  That is what we heard from Isaiah in the words:

A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!  Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!   Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.

Such indeed is the first requirement of repentance in our lives, turn away from sin in all sincerity; and, in doing that, turn to the Lord:

Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.  

Were would-be-Christians simply to give themselves to turning from sin without turning to the Lord -- that is, without actively acknowledging that the Lord (alone) is good -- that could only lead to pride, even of devilish proportions.  Were such would-be-Christians, on the other hand, to simply proclaim the glory of the Lord without a serious endeavour to reject and avoid sin, such praise would be hypocritical, certainly not what ‘the mouth of the Lord has spoken’.  The prophecy of Isaiah is one, entire and whole:

In the desert prepare the way of the Lord …make it straight, level, and plain … then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Notice too, People of God, that Isaiah’s prophecy provides us with a sure way to test the quality of our repentance, to appreciate how much and what sort of repentance we need: is the glory of the Lord being revealed to you?  Do you, as you grow older year by year, see and admire in Jesus more and more of the glory, that is, of the beauty, the goodness, the truth, and the wisdom, of God?  Do you, as the years pass by, become ever more grateful to the Father for His goodness to you in Jesus: perhaps, even, for His goodness to all mankind?  Do you find yourself more and more willing to trust Him completely, to trust Him alone?  Do you aspire to know, love, and serve Him with your whole being?  If you can say “Yes” to questions such as these then indeed, you are both sincerely repenting and truly seeking the face of the Lord; and I can say that confidently, because the glory of God is, indeed, being gradually revealed to you.

But what if, as the years go by, when you seriously look at yourself and sincerely question yourself before God, what if then you recognize that you are thinking less and less of Jesus because you are increasingly absorbed in worldly interests and aspirations, more and more preoccupied with cares about people and money and less and less attentive to God speaking to you in your conscience or touching your heart-strings?  Do you feel yourself obliged to respond in kind for every little benefit you receive from others -- a Christmas card for a Christmas card, an invitation for an invitation, a gift for a gift -- and yet never think that you owe a debt of gratitude to God for all the many blessings He has bestowed on you throughout Hyour life?

All these failings are quite possible, People of God, where Christian people are no longer living with God, for God, sufficiently, but always looking at and responding to others in order to justify, protect, satisfy and advance themselves.

In our first reading from the prophet Isaiah we heard his striking evocation of Israel’s return from her Babylonian exile as a triumphal procession of God’s People, freed from the chains of captivity and having paid for their sins, following the lead of the Lord their God towards a Jerusalem urged to become a radiant herald of good news.   And that good news was that:

            The Glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.

After 500 years that prophecy approached fulfilment when Jesus, the glorious Son of God made flesh, Himself entered Jerusalem with humble acclaim shortly before He was delivered over to an ignominious death on a Roman cross at priestly behest.  Then, indeed, on the third day, the Glory of God was most truly and sublimely revealed in His glorious resurrection: not visible to the bodily eyes of some few then present in Jerusalem, but to be seen by all people together, as the prophet says; to be seen, that is, with eyes of faith offered equally to all people, of all times, and in all places.

Mother Church, however, now bids us hear St. Peter speaking as a prophet of the New Testament, and telling us:

The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.

That day will be the final coming and manifestation of the Lord, a divine and transcendent vision of ultimate reality, both solemn and glorious, introducing no mere jingoistic national triumph, but individual judgement and universal consummation.  However, Saint Peter adds for those who are impatient or doubting:

With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

And so, no matter what might be the state we find ourselves in at this moment, advent is the season when we are urged by Mother Church to aspire to welcome Jesus into our lives anew: that His truth might enlighten us, His love inspire us, and the Gift of His most Holy Spirit be our sustenance and guide along His way to the Father.   The moment in time is irrelevant to God, His glory, and our salvation; what matters is that we be found to have the desire to listen and the humility to learn, the love and the longing for the good He promises, and finally the patience and fortitude to forget ourselves and to trust Him for the achieving of it.

Oh, the wisdom of Mother Church who sets before us today two prophets: Isaiah, so lyrical and Peter so solemn!  Yes, how very different, but ultimately how very complimentary they are for us today. Isaiah was proclaiming comfort to my people in the name of God for those returning home from exile in Babylonia, following the Lord journeying with them to dwell once again in a renewed Jerusalem …. Peter was comforting too, but he was offering comfort to a people suffering persecution and experiencing uncertainty.  For those hearing Isaiah the nation was about to be re-established, the capital city to be rebuilt, and the Temple -- the glory of Jerusalem and of the whole nation -- was to become glorious again with God’s Name dwelling there!  For those reading St. Peter’s letter, however, there was no nation, no capital city, no renowned Temple or Church, just the wide and thinly spread Christian body, a spiritual unity indeed, but almost invisible in a hostile and multitudinous world.  Both Isaiah and Peter were appealing to faith in their hearers, but in Isaiah’s case national pride and expectations were also very strong in the hearts and minds of the people …. whereas for Peter’s message there was nothing but the faith of confessors and martyrs to welcome and uphold it … no national pride to identify themselves, or to unite and bolster them against their enemies. 

Nevertheless, Isaiah’s message was heard by a people unaware of the dangers inherent to their apparent strength, while Peter’s message was given to a scattered group whose sore-tried faith was becoming, under much pressure, a firm basis for the nascent Church.

The joyful remembrance of the birth of Our Lord is not an end in itself.   Christmas joy is a means towards our salvation, it is a providentially repeated stage on the way: a time of refreshment, renewal, and re-direction.

At Christmas we are meant to recall the Almighty God and Lord of Hosts Who became, for love of us, a little Child destined:

            For the fall and rising of many, and for a sign which will be spoken against;

a Child Whose mother would have to experience a sword pierce her soul, when ultimately, despised and rejected of men, He was crucified on a little hill just outside Jerusalem.  And St. Peter reminds us that the memory of such unheard-of love, promising us atonement and eternal salvation, is for our unfailing and grateful refreshment as, conducting ourselves in holiness and devotion, we journey on, eager to be found without spot or blemish before Him; at peace, and waiting for the coming of the day of the Lord, when there will be new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.  Therefore, such Christmas joy and heavenly expectations must never be used as a pretext for, soiled by, earthly revelry replete with drunken and/or sordid excesses.

During this Advent and the Christmas season therefore -- in the spirit of Isaiah’s original prophecy -- let us indeed embrace St. Paul’s words (Philippians 4:4-7):

Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again, I will say, rejoice!   Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.   

First Sunday of Advent Year B 2014

 1^st. Sunday of Advent (B)

(Isaiah 63:16b-17; 64:1, 3-8; 1^st. Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37)

Our reading from the prophet Isaiah on this, the first Sunday of the Advent season, is a direct preparation for what will be the ultimate realization and fulfilment of the purpose for which Jesus the Christ came as man, and the supreme proclamation of His Good News: namely, the revelation of God the Father, and the re-birth -- by the Holy Spirit -- of Jesus’ disciples as true children of the heavenly Father.

At the very beginning of our adapted first reading Isaiah referred to God as Father twice:

You are our father.  Were Abraham not to know us, nor Israel to acknowledge us, You, Lord, are our father, our redeemer you are named forever.   

Yes, Isaiah was very conscious and proud of the fact that God was a father to Israel; and yet, what did he mean by that word ‘father’? 

For an answer to our question we must turn our attention to the Law, in particular to the book of Deuteronomy, source of the fountain which inspired Isaiah, for there we read:

You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, you forgot the God who gave you birth. (32:18)

And he then continues, speaking in the name of the Lord:

They have provoked Me with their ‘no-god’, I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’; they are a people having no understanding. (32: 21, 28)

So, though the word ‘father’ is used, and even backed-up by words like ‘begot’ and ‘gave you birth’, nevertheless they are all used metaphorically, since it is all about the creation and establishment of a nation, from those who formerly had been a persecuted minority of slaves in Egypt and latterly a mere wandering, mongrel, collection of tribes-people.  That is why when for the third time the word ‘father’ is used in our reading from Isaiah we hear:

O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.   

Obviously Isaiah did not intend the full and literal meaning of the word ‘father’; for,  though he said: ‘You are our father, our Redeemer You are named forever’, he  showed more precisely what he meant with the word ‘father’ in the words that followed: ‘You are our father, we are the clay and you the potter’.

So we have it: the prophet himself was not, and could not be, aware of the full meaning and true significance of the word he used when calling God the father of Israel; nevertheless, his ignorance of the full meaning of the word he used was and is a true sign of the inspiration of his prophecy.  For, as St. Paul said to his Christian converts at Corinth:

God is faithful, by Whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:9).

Yes, God the Father, in His great faithfulness, was true to His originally Chosen People over more than a thousand years – which surely is one of the deepest reasons for our trusting and hoping in Him – and, having led Isaiah and indeed Israel as a whole to use a word they could not fully appreciate, He then guided history itself so that those words of prophecy and traditional faith were ultimately shown to be true in the sublime beauty of their fullest meaning and deepest significance when He brought about -- through Mary of Nazareth, the Flower of Israel -- the birth in time of His only-begotten, eternally-beloved, Son.

Yes, God sent His consubstantial and co-equal Son to fulfil the words of the prophet and save His people from Satan’s power of sin and death.  Through faith and baptism into Jesus our Brother, humankind becomes adoptive sons and daughters of God: truly begotten by the Spirit, in the Son, for the Father.  By the Gift of the Holy Spirit -- bestowed on us in Mother Church by our loving Saviour in accordance with the Father’s promise -- we are established, sustained, and nourished as living members of Him Who is the eternal and only-begotten Son; thereby enabling us to live our human potential to its sublime fulfilment, becoming, in Jesus, adopted children of the one true God and Father of us all.  That, dear People of God, is why you heard St. Paul exclaim in the second reading:

I give thanks to my God always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus.

As we are now entering upon a new Church year, it is not only right and proper, but surely, also, supremely helpful and comforting, for us to be clearly aware of the ultimate goal of our life in Jesus.   However, it is not only Jesus and the Holy Spirit Who are at work in us, leading us to and forming us for, the Father; no, the Father Himself comes to us, as Jesus promised:

If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. (John 14:23)

The Father Himself, that is, comes – with Jesus and the Holy Spirit -- to abide within us and to help us become His true children in Jesus, and this He does in a way that is unique to Him, that is, by showing Himself to be our most perfect, and indeed only true, Father:

As for you, call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. (Matthew 23:8–9)

The Father can speak to us -- if we will hear and listen -- from our earliest years, because He is able speak to us in the very centre of our being.  Good parents have this ability also although only to a very limited extent; it is indeed a special gift from God for them, which is why the words and attitudes of our parents can remain with us throughout life.  Since the Father, however, deals with us through unspoken words in the depths of our personal being; and since, in our early years we have hardly learned to recognize His traces, early experiences of such communications seem to originate with ourselves, to be ours: mysterious longings and desires, sudden lights and quiet convictions, protecting fears and simple assurance, all can seem to be very much a part of us because they come from the centre of our being; and yet, because they are communications from the as-yet-not-known Father, they remain inexplicable to ourselves. The Father’s speaking to us only becomes intelligible as we walk, by the Spirit, along the ways of Jesus -- as indicated to us by Mother Church -- and thus growing in awareness of and responsiveness to His loving Presence and continuing Providence.  When diverse and apparently unrelated events come to be suspected as connected and coherent parts of one embracing Providential plan protecting us from our own ignorance and guiding us through our own sinfulness and weakness towards a previously unanticipated goal; when parents, and even perhaps teachers and friends, come to be appreciated as having been aspects – fleeting or enduring -- of a Providence overarching our life; and when the past as a whole is gradually seen to harbour a shape that promises to give meaning and purpose to the present, as well as hope and expectation of future possibilities of good, then the Father’s  Presence and Providence is revealing itself to us in glimpses reflecting the beauty of His truth and the splendour of His grace in the Scriptures and in Mother Church;  glimpses where greater certitude arises from presence rather than proof, and deeper knowledge from experience rather than investigation.  Then, indeed, amazement stuns our mind, while love inflames our heart and restores our soul: God is so wondrously over and above us, and yet so mercifully and lovingly in us and for us. 

In ways such as these the Father can speak to us in any situation and throughout the whole extent of our life.  No earthly father or mother, no friend, no lover, can speak so intimately or be present to us in such a way: because He is the God who originally made us in His Own likeness, for whom He gave up His only-begotten Son, and on whom He bestows a breathing of His very Spirit.

Indeed, such is His great goodness to us that He would be our all, not only in our origins, but also in the end and ultimate justification of our being.  He wants to be for us the perfect Father: such a Father to Whom only Jesus can introduce us, for Whom, only the Spirit can form us; and Whose Presence we can encounter only as living members of the glorious Body of Christ, our Brother and our Head.  He is indeed, and wills to be for each one of us, the sublime Father Who is always there -- with us and in us -- far closer to us than we are, or ever can be, to ourselves; the Father who first of all draws us to Jesus and, in Jesus, forms us for Himself by the Spirit.

If we bear in mind that, in the Catholic patristic tradition, the Son and the Holy Spirit have been spoken of, figuratively, as the hands of the Father, we are now in a position to understand the true significance of Isaiah’s words:

O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.

Understanding the significance of Isaiah’s words and realizing that they were pronounced hundreds of years before Jesus, we are also in a position to appreciate not only the loving providence and sublime wisdom of our God but also the fact that, as the most perfect of Fathers, He has indeed loved us before we were born, and continues to love us in such a way and to such an extent that, in return, we most surely can and should -- always and unhesitatingly -- commit ourselves to His wisdom and love wherever life may lead us or death o’ertake us.