FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THINK NOTHING OF IT

Dei Verbum paragraphs 5 & 6

Forget about converting anybody.  You aint gonna do it.

 

So stop worrying about it.

 

The Holy Spirit does the converting.  You may be a tool that the Holy Spirit uses so keep at it!  Trust God to work.

 

Funny thing that: You may have all kinds of tricks in your bag that you wish to employ to convert someone and it will be something you might consider so completely inconsequential that actually does it.  It’s like trying to figure out an Ipad for the first time.  You just keep punching it until suddenly something works right.  You might not even know what it was (as was the case with me) but it worked.

 

God is.  From Him came everything and all things will return to Him.  We can fight it, but it is the way of all being.  God desires you, reveals Himself to you, entices you with His love and glory as He wishes to bring you home where you have a place to be loved and belong. 

 

I think one of the most brilliant things God did was to give Himself the formal name, “Father.”  Think about it: when a baby is born, it pretty much knows “Mom.”  He just spent nine months of 24/7 with her.  All of a sudden then there is this hairy being that wants to hold and feed and play with him.  We may have an innate idea of “Dad,” but you’ve got to get to know him.  The way you do this is by spending time with him, conversing and communicating, and growing in love.

 

We also have to get to know The Father.  We get to know Him too by spending time with Him, talking (praying) with Him, and spending time with Him.  That innate idea that He exists in the first place is the movement of the Holy Spirit within us – that grace already at work to bring us to know Him.  These burning coals of the Holy Spirit need to be fanned to grow to a flame.  This comes by way of paying attention to them, and having them fed by His self-revelation so that it grows to a mighty flame.    

 

There is a joke that goes like this:

 

The pastor of a parish went before the altar in the church, knelt down, and began to pray, “Lord, have mercy on me.  I am nothing in your sight.”

 

The parochial vicar observing his pastor and being impressed knelt down next to him and also began to pray, “Lord, you are everything.  I place myself at your feet.  I am nothing in your presence.”

 

The janitor seeing the two clerics set down his mop, walked over to the sanctuary step and knelt down next to the priests and also began to pray, “Lord my God, only in you do I live and move and have my being.  You are all.  Have mercy on me since without you, I am nothing.”

 

The parochial vicar, on seeing this, elbowed the pastor and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Look who thinks he’s nothing.”

 

(insert laugh here)

 

God is completely other.  Some would say supernatural.  There is an argument to be made (not all agree) that God is the natural and we the supernatural since we are only held in being by His will – but I digress.  In any event, God and we are completely other – kind of like the matter/antimatter in the 1960s Star Trek series.  But that does not make God unknowable.  Through His inspiration and revelation, and through human reason, we can come to know Him if we choose.