Through Lent with Pope Francis
When somebody has an answer for every question, it is a sign that they are not on the right road. They may well be false prophets, who use religion for their own purposes, to promote their own psychological or intellectual theories. God infinitely transcends us; he is full of surprises. We are not the ones to determine when and how we will encounter him; the exact times and places of that encounter are not up to us. Someone who wants everything to be clear and sure presumes to control God’s transcendence.
Gaudete et exsultate
Scripture
I Corinthians 2:10-15 NCB
For the Spirit explores everything, even the depths of God. And just as no human being comprehends any person’s innermost being except the person’s own spirit within him, so also no one comprehends what pertains to God except the Spirit of God.
We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed upon us by God. And we speak of these things in words taught to us not by human wisdom but by the Spirit, expressing spiritual things in spiritual words.
An unspiritual person refuses to accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him such things are foolish. He is unable to understand them because they can be discerned only in a spiritual way.
A spiritual person discerns all things, and he is himself subject to no one else’s judgment.
Thought for Today
Sometimes it seems religious people can be divided into those who see faith as assenting to creedal statements and following laws and teachings, and those who see God as beyond human understanding, who see as mystics. There seems to be a wisdom in trying to hold together something of both, rather than seeing them as two opposing sides.
Music
God Beyond all Names sung by the Thomas More Group, written by Bernadette Farrell