Today\u2019s\nparadox is an examination of receiving what we already have. Take for instance,\nGod\u2019s love for us. We know He has given us a full measure of His love. We know\nas His children He could not love us any less or any more than He already loves\nus. Yet, there are those overwhelming moments of gratitude and thankfulness,\nwhen His presence, His providence and His love come streaming into our lives,\nsurrounding us and our circumstances with His radiance. Perhaps, for some of\nus, this can be understood as an awakening. When in our worldly realm, we\nrecognize and encounter what we know we have held in our hearts; what He has already\ngiven us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is another aspect of receiving which is\nnot paradoxical; it is an addition, a gift from Grace. Not a deepening of faith\nand understanding of His glory, something new, something which strengthens our\nreflection of His image and likeness in our creation. This is the gift of the\nHoly Spirit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have long struggled with the biblical reconciliation\nof what appears to be the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New\nTestament. Realizing that God has never changed, could not change; how is it\nthat the God of the Old Testament seems to be caught up in a world of cause and\neffect, stuck in an endless world of narrative discourse and dialog, entangled\nin fear and punishment? I explained this to myself, using the rationalization\nthat I could not really understand the mindset, the mentality of the first\ncentury Zionist. I am not from an era of tribal identity. I have never lived in a community of\nextended family. I do not know famine or the fear of famine, never witnessed war\nin my homeland, never watched my wife draw water from the well or trimmed my lamp\nat twilight. This leads me to the simple observation that the Bible was not written\nto us we are not the audience. The Bible was written for us; it is up to us to\nread, study and understand what is being taught to us through Holy Scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What also seems to be a reasonable\nobservation, is how crucial to the process is the lens one looks through when\nconsidering Holy Scripture. Am I an anthropologist studying human behavior,\nlooking for clues to why the civil constructs were formed the way they were,\nhow the buildings reflected the ideas of the time, discovering how the\npriorities of the society shaped its goals? Am I a historian, tracing the dates\nand events, finding the key components which led up to the events and then evaluating\nthe results? Am I a person of faith, looking up to the cross as our Lord looked\ndown on us? Is it through His words that I search all the possibilities, looking\nfor what is beyond my thinking, freeing myself from my frames of reference,\nstriking out in a new direction into unexplored arenas and beyond the near horizon?\nAnd now I realize what all these options have in common; they are all about me,\nand in this lies the fatal flaw. None of it is about me and where I am in it.\nIt is all about Him and the gift He brings, the Holy Spirit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christ Jesus came into this world and changed everything. As a Catholic, I realize\nthrough transubstantiation, substance is changed to essence. Beyond this sacramental\nprocess, every bit of the material world is affected by His coming which brought\nabout a deeper reflection of God\u2019s creation. His baptism served as a model for all of humanity\nand His divinity changed the Jordan River into holy water. His ministry ushered\nin a new era of understanding, social justice, beauty and kindness which had\nnever been witnessed in this worldly realm. His miracles showed the world the\ntrue glory of the Father Almighty, a glimpse of what lies beyond the\nunimaginable. His life fulfilled the prophecy of old and foretold of a coming\nage, a victory of peace and love. Christ Jesus is the bridge between death to\nlife; all His promises are true, He will stand between us and the Father, not\nas our judge, as our Savior. He is the bread of life. We can share the body,\nblood, soul and divinity, in all times, in all places throughout the world, and for all times. Through this sacrament, the\nEucharist, Christ gifts us a portion of His union with the Father. Yet through\nall this majesty, the blessings, and the gifts, nothing is greater than the gift\nof the Holy Spirit. My peace I leave you, My peace I give you. His love written\nin our hearts, His presence forever with us, in every instance of every second.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In His\npresence the Apostles received the Holy Spirit. He breathed on them, into them\nand through them, into a waiting world. A world suspended in the lifelessness\nof empty time. A world steeped in the identity of self. A world conceived in\nand of a man and woman, humanity without divinity. Christ Jesus changes all of\nthis. It is this missing component, the Holy Spirit, in their lives and in my\nthinking, which is the obstacle. The Bible, written to an audience who could\nnot understand God without His presence in their lives. It isn\u2019t God who differs\nfrom one age to the next, it is His people, now fully alive, endowed with the\nPresence of their Maker, who are now ready to embrace His goodness. To see Him\nas He is, not as they made Him out to be. I see now that I was asking the first\ncentury Christians to witness and testify to what they had not seen or known. I\nsee now that I was expecting the impossible. They like us, have to be shown the\nway; no one gets there on their own. Those who have eyes to see, should see and\nthose who have ears to hear should hear. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today\u2019s paradox is an examination of receiving what we already have. Take for instance, God\u2019s love for us. We know He has given us a full measure of His love. We know as His children He could not love us any less or any more than He already loves us. Yet, there are those overwhelming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,42,29],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-catholic-faith","tag-gift-of-the-holy-spirit","tag-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}