Late delivery of this morning's reflection!
Today, the 1st Sunday of Advent, calls us the an awareness of the new life that God is giving us through and in the birth of Jesus Christ. As we are beginning something new, a new liturgical year, there is thought that is proposed by Fr. Michael Hines, priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn teaching at Boston College. I would like to share this concept that is presented in Fr. Hines' book, Doing the Truth in Love. You may find it outrageous, you may find it interesting, you may find it a good way of think about God when you are praying or reading the Scriptures.
Fr. Hines starts the first chapter exploring the mystery of God. He asks "Who am I?" "Who are you?" Try as we may --- usually giving adjectives, descriptions, histories, names, where you have lived, major accomplishments and so on. It is the question of the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. Carroll's Caterpillar is not asking for description but for definition.
Hines says to a group of people discussing the mystery of God in a seminar that the real problem is "that we don't know (page 8)." He says it is a question without an answer. He points to Augustine who once wrote: "Who is Augustine?" Hines reflects: "He knew that he could not answer the question because the moment he did, he became more than he had said in his answer and so made the answer false (page 8)." If I could tell you who I am with a simple, powerful sentence, that very answer makes me something more that I was. So that answer I give is not exactly correct. As Hines states clearly, "The very attempt to answer that question pushes me past any answer I can give to the question (page 8)."
Speaking about God as mystery, which we know is a reality, is indeed something that is impossible to answer. An answer to the question "Who is God?" is also impossible. Why? Not because God is so very distant but because our God is so close to each one of us. And pondering a little about the "Who am I?" and "Who is God?" we come to realize there is a such a close connectedness to the two questions and that we really find it impossible to answer the question "Who is God?" What we do know, however, is that we are asking about absolute mystery.
Whatever image comes to your mind when your hear or read the word "God" "is not God (page 9)." It cannot be correct because if you could describe God, wouldn't you be limiting God? Wouldn't you be removing absolute mystery? Yet, we use the word so many times in our prayers, discussions, etc.. But what we are in effect doing is using the word "as a handy bit of shorthand for the absolute mystery" that is the basis for all we believe.
Our Christian heritage has handed on the belief that no matter how we might attempt to describe God, the one sure and very simple answer to the God question is found in the 1st Letter of John, chapter four, verses 8 and 16 (are you ready?). St. John gives the answer in three words: God is love. For St. John the particular kind of love is described with the Greek word: agape. You have heard the word, no doubt, many times. It is a Greek word with this meaning: "love which is purely other-directed (page 10)." As Hines writes, this kind of love never looks for something in return; it does not want anything back for the love given. It is easily defined as "pure self-gift."
The story of the Prodigal Son, especially at the closing of the story, models this kind of love. Recall that the older brother was grousing that the reprobate brother had come back and received all the attention. The older son sees his father's actions as an example of injustice. But the loving father is not concerned with any of the mores of the time as to how this returned son should be treated. The prodigal father is only concerned with agape for his younger son. It was his "absolute unconditional self-gift."
Now to what I want to offer as a challenging but rewarding insight for our thinking and prayer as we begin the Advent journey. Our tradition, as presented by St. John says that our God is love, not that God is one who loves. What? What does this mean?
"Love" is not the name given to a person, e.g. "priest" might be one name given to me. "'Love' is the name of a relationship between persons. That, I suggest to you, is the single richest insight into the mystery of God that the Christian tradition has to offer (page 15)."
Here now is the real challenge to you and me and our understanding of God as we have learned it, understood it and even taught it. You may think it a "weird, silly statement (page 16)." Hines writes that understand God as relationship "seems to imply that we should first think of God not as a person but as a relationship between persons. Is our calling upon the Trinity (in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) actually not a statement that God is a person but is the relationship between three (page 16)?
"The word 'God' is the name of a kind of communal relationship. God is not the one, God is the relatedness of the three (page 16)."
Stressing that the Trinity is the central Christian doctrine, Hines writes the following:
Notice the way in which the creed has traditionally been organized. We do not actually say that we believe in the Trinity. Rather, the who creed is a trinitarian statement. "We believe in God the Father, who ...," followed by the doctrines of creation and providence. "And in God the Son who...," followed by the doctrines of the incarnation, redemption, and resurrection. "And in God the Spirit who ...," followed by statements of belief in scripture, the church, sacraments, and eschatology (pages 16-17).
Hines makes clear that he sees that the meaning of the word "God" is "an eternal outpouring of self, a continual giving which is accepted and returned in continual giving, and the Spirit, that which unites the Lover and the Beloved, is agape (page 17)."
A challenging reflection, no doubt. But, as we prepare to celebrate that experience of "unconditional self-gift" of the Father to us in his Son, does not this insight into an understanding of the word "God" as the best human expression of that reality not give you a deeper awareness of how blessed we are our Father has given us the relationship that he is with his Son and the Holy Spirit ... and, ultimately with you, with me, your children, my siblings etc. Does not this insight give so much more understanding of the phrase we use so often: "God is love." The Father loves you and me so unrestrictedly that he establishes a God-relationship with each of us. Are we not singularly blessed?
Hope this was not too heavy! Happy 1st Sunday of Advent.
