THE PROCESS OF ASSIMILATING ENERGY FROM GOD

It is impossible to assimilate energy from God directly without a transformer. This transformer is the person of Jesus Christ as The Christ Principle. If it is true that no one can go to the Father except through Christ, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, then it also must be true that no one can receive power from God except through, with, and in Jesus Christ.

This process of energy transfer is called assimilation. The thought came to me in a Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) when I asked myself, “How do I receive grace (energy) from God?” When my car is out of gas, I go to Costco and fill it up. When I am hungry, I go to supper and fill up as much as it makes me comfortable. When I am out of grace, what do I do? I can’t remember “feeling out of grace,” or even having the idea bubble up from my consciousness.

As a human being, most of my longings are attached to emotional needs or mental challenges. Not so, my spiritual needs. Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” was an eye-opener for me. He limited needs to only the physical and mental universes, not wrong so much as incomplete. I always wondered what the needs would be for the spiritual universe around me. If food is the engine that drives my body to perform its functions properly, what energizes my spiritual self, the one marked with the cross?

Maslow only looks at the physical and mental universe and does not include the spiritual one. Suppose food, water, and the proper assortment of chemicals are needed to sustain the body in the first universe. In that case, this second universe of Maslow’s hierarchy gives an insightful look into what we need to be human. In the transcendent level of his diagram, I see it as human nature being incomplete in its intelligent progression. What is lacking is the spiritual universe in which we are a new creation through Baptism. Not even some of the Baptized are aware of the knowledge that we have a set of spiritual needs that need fulfilling. St. Augustine hints at this when he says, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

Because these needs come not from human nature but from divine nature, I call them The Divine Equation (you might term them something else). I have made a terrible mistake about God all these years. I kept thinking that the purpose of life is to know, love, and serve God in this life and to be happy with God in the next. I have grown deeper through exposure to the Holy Spirit, and I now think that the purpose of life is not to know about God but to discover the fullness of my human nature to its fullest. St. Thomas Aquinas hinted at this when he wrote: “I cannot go on…. All that I have written seems like so much straw compared to what I have seen and revealed to me.” ~ Thomas Aquinas

As I grow in my Lectio Divina capacitas dei, I feel what St. Thomas Aquinas described. What has emerged from my realization is that it is useless for me to try to know who God is; I can try to be as human as possible and love God with all my heart, mind, and strength. (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:36.) The Divine Equation is six questions and answers that come not from my humanity but from Christ’s humanity and divinity. They are:

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is the purpose of my life within that purpose?
• What does reality look like?
• How does it all fit together?
• How can I love fiercely?
• You know you are going to die: now what?

In any communication with the Sacred, what is going on is a transfer of energy from divine nature into human nature. A good analogy is trying to pour the ocean into my cup of blessings. It can’t happen. I don’t have the capacity or the capability to hold God’s energy. This is why I think Jesus came to save us. He is the mediator, the translator of divinity, so that each person receives God according to their disposition to receive it. This energy is pure knowledge, love, and service contained in one reality (The Trinity). Jesus is the Messiah long awaited by the Jews. He comes, not as a ruler, conqueror, or military dictator, but as a ransom for the many, the Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sins, one to give us what we need to sustain us as adopted sons and daughters of the Father. And what is that?

• Baptism — God chooses us to be adopted, sons and daughters.
• Confirmation — God gives the Holy Spirit to us as long as we live.
• Eucharist — Jesus is the bread of life. If we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have what we need to survive walking through the minefields of life.
• Penance and Reconciliation — Jesus makes all things new. When we miss the mark of being fully human, Christ is there to bind our wounds and give us the energy to pick ourselves up again and start over.
• Marriage — The Holy Family is the norm to lead a life loving others as Christ loved us. Procreation is lifted up by God to its evolutionary purpose– to love each other and, together, those around us.
• Holy Orders — the procreation of the kingdom of God is facilitated by the new Tribe of Levi, the Order of Melchizedek.
• Extreme Unction- God is next to us as we make the Passover from this life to the next.

I continue to learn that I am not the source of power to move from humanity to spirituality. I assimilate the energy of God through, with, and in Jesus, The Christ Principle. It means to be fully human to realize that I must be humble and obedient to God’s will. This goes against the tingling in my stomach when I try to do it, but it is a sign of contradiction and the fulfillment of my humanity on earth, leading to my reward in heaven.