CONFORMED TO THE PATTERN

“Be not conformed to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

The main character in the movie, A BEAUTIFUL MIND, was obsessive in how his mind found patterns. One wonders how this may be like any of us cope with the world as we find it - patterns emerge or are imposed in such a way as to mediate our encounter with reality. Some patterns are merely ideal with little or no correspondence with the real. Others correspond so well that we ascribe to them TRUTH.

Conscience keeps us connected to what is real - or should do so if it is well-formed and clear. Conscience that has poor correspondence between the ideal and real can make folly seem to be wise. Thus have many become fools.

COVENANTAL CREATION

Covenant is relationship between Creator & creation: the Creator proves responsibility by promising to sustain all creation and enabling creatures with the freedom to respond as well; the creature is free to respond by doing that which is consistent with the purposes of the Creator .

• God initiated the relationship by creating all that is, forming the earth itself in such a way as to support life.
• God created mankind in his own image; each human is created to carry the character of the Creator’s image.
• God planted a garden as the place where the creature carrying God’s character could live.
• God lay on this human creature the responsibility to care for the well-being of all other created things.
• God lightened life for the lone man by creating as well a woman to be a help meet for him.
• God created man and woman with the command to continue creation through their mutual physical relations.
• God, being a Divine Community in Himself, commanded humans to create community as well.
• God, in His Divine Community as Father and Son and Spirit,
• created man so that he could become father to sons and daughters through the woman
• and created woman so that she could become mother of those daughters and sons,
• making the family foundational for community
• God’s face/favor
• God found all that He created to be good and called His creation, “Good.” This favor God showed His creation continued especially in the creation of the man and woman, created in God’s own image. To see the face of one another was to see the face of God.

The man and woman looked upon their nakedness without shame; they did not turn their faces away at first. Then came the command of God regarding one of two trees planted in the middle of the Garden where they lived. The fruit of this particular tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad, was forbidden to the man & woman. Then came the clever serpent, by way of devious word, to distract the woman from attending to God’s command: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?”

Rather than recognizing the devilish doubt darkening the glorious truth of God’s own Word, the woman considered the contradiction without alarm, poorly remembering what God actually said. The serpent, hearing how she deviated from God’s Word, drove deeper his wicked wedge and said, “ You will not surely die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The Forbidden Fruit then took on an appearance devilishly different than the other trees in one devious way: Like the other trees, the tree on which the woman found the Forbidden Fruit was good for food and a delight to the eyes, but it was as well desirable to make one wise. Not only did the woman take and eat from the fruit of this Forbidden Tree, but she also gave some to her husband.

While this was happening, the man whom God created had been with the woman whom God created for him. Not only did he fail to recognize the deception, he deliberately chose to eat as well what God had forbidden him to eat. The consequence of contradicting God’s command came immediately. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened …” They now knew that they were naked, a new kind of knowing that caused them shame. Now knowing this new thing, this bad thing, so different from knowing only what is good, they covered themselves, or at least attempted to do so by making loin covering with sewn-together fig leaves.

The LORD God found them just like that, shivering shamefully in the crazy costumes they had made themselves. The sound of God’s coming caused the two to try to hide from the presence of the LORD God. However, their hiding place, among the trees of the Garden where God walked in the cool of the day, hideously failed to keep them from having face the LORD.

The human creature found himself fallen out of favor with his own Creator. For the first time ever, Creator God turned his face away from His creation. Hope remained in the covenantal promise of God to overcome the curse Himself someday in the woman’s seed.

BELIEVE GOD IS

Believe God is – this first,
faith then will become operative
in assuring one of what follows from that.
The first responsibility of any person
is to believe in God,
that is, be faithful to God
– faith, by definition, is believing what is true;
if what one believes is not true, one is unfaithful.
To not believe God is
will mar anything else a person may believe:
"without faith it is impossible to please Him,
for he who comes to God must believe that He is
and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him"
(Hebrews 11:6).

Belief functions in humans before reason does.
This priority of belief is a matter of maturity
– "when I was a child, I reasoned as a child ...."
What is childish reasoning like?
It is thinking one's beliefs
rightly describes reality as it appears to be.
Reason accepts the possibility that
what is apparent may be other than what is real.
This is what I like
about the philosophical approach of phenomenology
– it takes seriously the appearance of things
but is willing to put that appearance to question.

There is no such person as a "non-believer."
Every person believes something.
A reasonable person will desire
to believe what is true
– to believe otherwise is not reasonable.
Grace and truth are realized through Jesus Christ.
I believe that God graciously takes responsibility
for revealing the truth He wants us to know.
We must pattern what we believe
after that which God has revealed
– God is perfectly revealed in Christ Jesus.
Born in sin, our belief system begins out of whack.
We begin our lives
capable of believing only one thing properly
(this is how I understand what Romans 12:3 describes
as each person's "measure of faith" )
– that we need God to reveal how we ought to believe.
Responsible belief is continually on the lookout
for whatever God reveals.
Humans are born
ready to respond to what God reveals
– sin works to distort that revelation
and alter our response.
It is the grace of God that works
against the distorting influence of sin;
by grace we are able to respond rightly to God's revelation,
if we are willing,
that is, if we believe.
Belief is what we are willing to do.

Belief always takes place in the context of relationship.
That is why witnessing is more than mere reasoned presentation
of the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ
– it is a reasoning together:
this often involves a challenge to beliefs,
iron sharpening iron, as it were.
Let this conversation take place
in love, grace and truth in action.
When one of the persons reasoning together is God Himself,
the other discovers a cleansing transformation taking place
– sin, that source of bad belief,
no longer separates oneself from God.
God is right there to be worshipped
– confession, repentance, praise, intercessory prayer,
proclamation of his mighty works, and on and on.

All praise be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
who has opened the way for us,
through the power of the Holy Spirit,
to faithfully believe what pleases our Father in Heaven,
the LORD God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

THE YOKE OF CHRIST, NOT "CHRISTIANITY"

Christianity is too much identified by way of institutions

rather than the person of Jesus Christ.

Although I may be "a man under authority,"

that authority is not an institution but a person!

I will not serve an institution

- I serve only God and serve with servants of God.

If my service to God puts me in submission to some servant of God,
then I will become obedient to that servant,

remaining always responsible for my own obedience to God,

trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me in choosing well whom to obey.

If I discern some abuse of authority,

I am free to reject the authority of the abuser,

even if doing so mars the reputation of institutionalized Christianity.

In doing so, however,

I remain responsible for being obedient to Christ,

for I bear the yoke of Christ, not Christianity.

THE CALL TO THEOLOGY

I find very interesting the following excerpt from DONUM VERITATIS :

Among the vocations awakened

... by the Spirit in the Church

is that of the theologian.

His role is to pursue in a particular way

an ever deeper understanding of the Word of God

found in the inspired Scriptures

and handed on by the living Tradition of the Church.

The theologian must … be attentive

to the epistemological requirements of his discipline,

to the demands of rigorous critical standards,

and thus

to a rational verification of each stage of his research.

The obligation to be critical, however,

should not be identified with the critical spirit

which is born of feeling or prejudice.

The theologian must discern in himself

the origin of and motivation for his critical attitude

and allow his gaze to be purified by faith.

The commitment to theology requires a spiritual effort

to grow in virtue and holiness.

FORMED BY FORGIVENESS

God gives life, forming each person in the womb of one's mother. Each person, however, is born in sin, deformed from the failure of our first father, Adam. Reformed by baptism in the name of the crucified Christ who rose to live again, we can begin to become mature as Christ is formed in us by faithfully following his Way of Truth through life. Moving on in maturity from the experienced love of eros on to the shared love of philos and the learned love of storgos, we die to self to become alive in Christ so that we can love like Christ Himself loved us, fully expressing the love of God in his ultimate act of agape, death on the cross. Secure now in being loved oneself by God, we live by the resurrection power of Christ to love others as we have been loved ourselves. Always intending to act justly, we continually love mercy in imitating the forgiveness of God before whom we humbly walk. Doing the truth in love, we find justice fulfilled in forgiveness.

Each choice we make follows from this absolute commitment to being like Christ, ordering all we do towards God. Every relationship with every person we encounter is an opportunity to make manifest the love of God. Being bound by the bodily reality of concupiscence, we find we fail in our following, our conscience standing as witness to such failure.

Yet God's grace does not fail, being given freely as we repent, renewing our baptismal commitment to be faithful followers of the Way. No longer in hiding because of our failure, we are ready to reveal who we are to others, unashamed of what our lives may show. By God's grace, every aspect of our lives makes known to others the loving truth of our Lord Jesus Christ.