HappyMama

 But I shall show you a still more excellent way. [1Cor. 12]

Today’s readings were essential to my acceptance of the existence of God & all that is supernatural.  Realizing the He is infinite and I am finite was at once simple and profound.  I used to struggle to believe in God because I couldn’t understand everything faith entailed.  Then, thanks to a marvelous series of events, a philosophy professor made me realize that that’s the point.  If  I could understand all the mysteries of God, then He wouldn’t be very magnificent, would he?  “I believe in order to understand” became my motto.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…[Jer.1]   God is infinite, and His ways are not ours.  Logic & reason can only get us so far.  Reason alone could never get to the conclusion that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  Reason alone could never find the benefit of fasting or vowing poverty, chastity, or obedience.   Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.” 

Dietrich von Hildebrand was a philosophical genius, but after he converted to Christianity, he realized how much more truth he was able to find.  In his biography, his wife writes:  “[After his conversion,] Dietrich’s life was changed.  His passionate love for beauty and for natural truth in no way waned.  But he had found a beauty that was infinitely more ravishing - the face of Christ and His Church and the supernatural message they convey, the path of humility and love leading to holiness.”

Today’s scriptures remind us that no amount of reason, this side of heaven, is sufficient for perfect knowledge.  Only in Heaven will we understand as completely as Christ intends for us.  We must bring all our concerns to prayer and view them with the light of humble faith, not the darkness of arrogance.

[1Cor. :] And if I have the gift of prophecy,
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge…
but do not have love, I am nothing.

For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child,
think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.