The book I am holding up, The Quest for the Living God, by
Sister Elizabeth Johnson of the Sisters of St Joseph, may look innocent
enough. It was published in 2007, but
didn’t get a lot of attention until March of this year, when the bishops here
in the US issued a statement on this book, saying that they had grave concerns
about its theology, cautioning against its use in Catholic educational
institutions in our country. However,
Sister Elizabeth Johnson responded to the bishops by saying that her book was
not meant to an academic document, or an official statement of Catholic
doctrine, but rather a look at how people in our modern world today experience
God in their lives. And we do experience
God very differently, depending upon our personalities, our interests, our
culture, and the way we live our lives.
One of the chapters in this book talks about the God of fiesta, how the
Hispanic community experiences God in their lives. Boy, can I relate to that. As you all know, when we celebrated Our Lady
of Guadalupe with our Hispanic community here in Yazoo City, we had mass at 11
pm, and I did not get to bed until 3 in the morning after the joyful, energetic
fiesta we had after mass. The Hispanic
community would not have dreamed of celebrating the feast day of Our Lady with
food and merriment. That is how they see
God interacting with their lives.
We are coming to an end to our Advent journey on this 4th
Sunday of Advent. Next weekend we will
have our Christmas eve and Christmas day masses. Hopefully, all of us have listened to the
messages we’ve received in our readings during this Advent season to be alert
and to stay awake, not only in anticipation of Christ’s birth into our world as
a little baby in the manger in Bethlehem, but also as we await Christ’s second
coming. And we have heard John the
Baptist these past couple of weeks tell us to make straight a path for the Lord
in our lives; we have heard John give
testimony about the light of Christ that will shine in the midst of the
darkness of our world.
Today, we hear about the Virgin Mary’s experience of God in
her life, as the Angel Gabriel comes to her in the Annunciation, telling her
that she will bear a child who will be the Son of God, the Son of the Most High. Yet, Mary relates this news to the reality of
her life. How can this be, she wonders? How can this young teenager, who has followed
all the rules, who is getting ready to marry Joseph, be pregnant if she has
been true and faithful and still a virgin?
She is troubled at first at the words that she hears. She does not understand how this can be
happening. I am sure she is wondering what impact this will have on her life,
on her future.
Mary responds to the experience of God in her life, to the
reality that faces her. Mary ultimately accepts
God’s will in her life, she responds to
his message with faith and with grace.
Yet, so many of us in the modern world wonder where God is in the midst
of everything that is going on in our lives.
Not only in the midst of our own daily reality, of all the struggles and
personal demons we must each confront, but also in the midst of the chaos,
violence, and turbulence of the world around us. Last summer, I had an email forwarded to me
from a young man who lives in the Fonderan neighborhood of Jackson, an area
where a lot of young people hang out. This
young man wrote: “I just don’t
understand…the more I search, the less I find.
I don’t understand how people can believe in whatever they believe in
and be confident (that) what they believe is the truth….I can’t accept anything
without knowing for sure it’s true.”
This young man goes on to say that he just doesn’t understand what we
mean by the term “faith.” He sees faith
as a cop-out from having to provide legitimate proof. With our modern technology and reliance on
science and reason, so many people in our world today want an answer that
explains everything. They cannot accept
something if its not explained 100% by reason or science. They want to see and touch; they want the facts;
they want to be able to rationally explain something in order to believe it and
accept it.
But for us as Catholics, we can have faith, we
can believe, because we do experience God in our lives. And those experiences can be subtle and
sublime, but they are very, very real. Maybe
we don’t have an angel coming to us like the Virgin Mary had the Angel Gabriel,
but I but that at certain times in our lives we’ve all had human angels come to
us with a kind word or a helping hand.
God isn’t a concept that is nebulous and way out there, up in the
heavens. God isn’t just a bunch of
rules, or commandments, or Church doctrine that is summarized in a document
coming out of Rome. God is real, and he
comes to us in those everyday experiences we have in life.
Elizabeth Johnson responded to the
criticism she received regarding her book, saying that it gives her the
opportunity to delve more deeply into the way we are all is trying to better
understand the mystery that is God. If
we had all the answers, there wouldn’t be anything more written about God or
about our faith. We would just take the
works written by our Church Fathers, such as St Augustine and St Thomas
Aquinas, and there wouldn’t be any further discussion or research. But, our faith seeks understanding in the way
we experience God in our lives, in the ways we try to live out our faith. We have faith, but we search and ponder and
react to God in the midst of our reality.
Mary said yes to the will of God in her
life. That “yes” was not the end of the
story, but rather a new beginning. In a
week, Jesus will be born into our world.
Our Advent period of preparation will end. However, our experience of God in our lives
will continue.
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