CaptFun responds in RED AND Blue AND Green
- but he’s stopped finally!
Jesus is everywhere, but not in the way that our human minds tend to think. Two clauses, one sentence. Each clause (though seemingly simple is utterly** profound.**Taken in unity (and believed - or even just honestly CONSIDERED as possibly true and examined for truth) “our human minds” begin to take a new journey - the search for God, and/or more intimate knowledge and understanding of God, and/or the journey to a deeper more intimate relationship with Him. Which leads us to discovering OUR relationship(s) (HIS/Ours individually, His/Ours/Others together, Ours/Others in HIM in love and ever deepening intimacy until heaven and earth pass away, Jesus is in US, as He is in the Father, United with the Holy Spirit and “all will be in all.” ***Not in the way our human minds tend to think … ***Indeed.
Your introductory sentence here (most probably inspired - even if it is not a spontaneous illumination but something you’ve been taught and remembered at this time) may well be a manifestation of the gift of Wisdom we receive at Confirmation - as it strikes at the heart of man’s deepest questions about his own PURPOSE and lesser things too.
Jesus (being God) does not have existence (as do you and I), but is existence.
I interrupt this paragraph to remark that THIS declarative sentence is possibly the most illuminating and thought provoking statement I have run across in a LOOOOONG time. And so far, as I scrutinize it thoroughly (but not cynically) it agrees with and sheds light on each Catholic doctrine on the subject (and some other subjects) I have considered (so far).
IS EXISTENCE! – “I AM !” – “*** I *** AM !” Not just an everywhere THING, like AIR or SUNLIGHT but an everywhere PERSON! These are some of my thoughts so far … and as far as I can see … fruitful, exciting, and leading me closer to HIM.
Because you and I have existence, we can be measured and quantified - our physical properties (such as location) can be determined by observation. But this is not possible for existence itself. YES! ***“Science” - ***which is really just human discovery of the realities God has created - and saving what we’ve learned and continue to learn for observation, comparison, categorization and ideally illumination - itself “knows” it (science) can’t measure some things as we are earthbound and there are other realities in the universe not bound by the “laws” of our planet! We CAN’T quantify “existence” and can barely begin to wrap our minds around the unbound, limitless CONCEPT of the reality!
1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,”
These days some fill the “God VOID” of our society’s semi-official atheism with the word “Science”. They posit a mindless chaos that suddenly organizes a big bang that then somehow begets all sorts of orderly things. They are often hung up on explaining AWAY God as not even being an allowable theory to pursue in the human search into the “first things.”
ONE “intellectual” dismissal (which violated the above “IS Existence” concept by placing the “theoretical God of the Bible” in a quantified “box”) ran like this.
“If God always WAS, as you teach, and then said “Let there be light …” what was He doing before that … stumbling about in the eternal DARK?!” < Which at least showed she was thinking a little and proposing an entertaining visual image albeit still erroneous and (in the light of Church teachings) self-deceiving.
The question pictured God as being “inside” a “bigger, greater” Universe.
Even when I pictured Him as “outside and greater” than her proposed Universe, it did not satisfy my sensibilities like your “IS Existence” explanation did. Not only bigger than the “box” of the Universe, but containing the box, inhabiting the box, sustaining the box in existence - which is IN HIM.
**Acts 17:23 **What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is **He who gives to everyone life and breath and everything. **26 He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, 27 so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him **and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us. **
28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'
There are no units of measure for Jesus. One cubic inch of interstellar space contains the same “amount” of Jesus as the whole universe.
When I read this last sentence, I began to meditate on one of God’s gifts to us … a sacramental sign He used often in teaching us. Water.
Why water? Throughout the Bible God points to IT and uses IT. And it seems to be one of those things St. Paul speaks of
Romans 1:20 Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.
Water … is a “trinity”. A trinity of gases science would classify it. The two hydrogen atoms in each molecule by themselves are lighter than air and would not tend to descend to the surface of the earth. Oxygen is found at earth level. Bound together and becoming together water this trinity descends and ascends, taking many forms. Some visible: rain, ice, hail, fog, mist, lakes, oceans, rivers, icebergs etc.; some invisible: humidity, vapors.
Water in its everyday journey to us, around us, through us and being part of us - cleanses us, brings us life, keeps us healthy, cools us or warms us, sterilizes medical instruments and eating utensils. Yet is just an IT that reminds us of God in whom we exist.
The story of Jesus - coming down to earth, giving life, cleansing us of our sins, going into the ground like the rain that helps beget new life - rising again clean like water "drying up’ from the earth and ascending to the heavens invisibly - can be recalled by looking at water’s daily journey to us.
Water is powerful. A flood can kill us, and ended a world once. But without it we cannot live. The SIGN is not the ONE who loves us … but we can rejoice in the learning.
AND OUR RESPONDING! HE loves US! WANTS a deeper relationship with US - and invites us to, by OUR own free will - to say YES to His offer. To rest in Him, or excitedly journey with Him, and be a channel of His love to the others He loves (and WE should!)
Christ Be With Me (based on the writings of St. Patrick)
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of the Christ.
May your salvation, Lord, be ever with us. THANK YOU DavidFilmer. You said a lot with a few words. I said a little with a lot of words. But the SUBJECT is Sublime! As is our destiny together (all of us)
IN HIM! :heaven:
