THE GOD WHISPERER: WE CAN’T KNOW WHO GOD IS, SO HOW DO WE KNOW WHO GOD IS?

I find myself on this Wednesday thinking about how humans cannot know who God is (with human reasoning and knowledge). The fact that I am sitting here thinking about a topic that is so obscure that there is a good chance no one on earth is thinking about it at the same time as I am. It is either this or sit here in retirement and watch the plastic flowers grow, hoping that I don’t see any of them bloom.

This is what waiting for the Holy Spirit in my upper room (Matthew 6:5) is like for me. I don’t control the topic. My Lectio is Philippians 2:5, “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” I keep repeating it and then reflect on whatever comes to mind. This meditation comes from the totality of my life experiences and choices; most, I must admit, were good, but now that I have abandoned the interference from the world and pledged my will to seek the will of Christ for me through the Holy Spirit, I look back at what I thought was success and achievement as being so much do-do. I am ashamed of my choices, not because they were bad but more like they were my choices without the redemptive influence of Christ as my center. That is what happens when I grow in the depths of Christ (capacitas dei) each day. One day I woke up and realized that all that went before, good as I thought it was, missed the mark 95% of the time. I even had the thought that I didn’t want to go to heaven because I would have to face all those people I knew that they knew how much of a jerk I had been. St. Benedict in the RB 4:44-49. Formerly, I had a nice formal training in many topics, but my focus was always on what my temporal school had taught me. Now, Christ through the Holy Spirit is my Magister Noster (My Master Teacher), and I can look back on my life with the habit of penance that says, “Jesus Christ, Son of David, have mercy on me a sinner.” I say that many, many times each day, and I mean it.

THE WHISPERS OF GOD IN A HURRICANE OF COMPETING GODS AND IDEOLOGIES

God is one, but not only that, there is only one God. Given that each and every human has the freedom to choose a God of their own design or listen to the whispers that come from the divine nature. Only what is divine comes from that divine nature. Being human and not divine in nature, I am limited to the inconsistencies of human vulnerabilities as I wobble down the rock road of my life. Like turning on fifty television sets, each with a different channel, the world bids me to follow its way to fulfillment, to place the individual as the center of life, to view life as the end and not the beginning of our evolutionary pilgrimage. The problem with being human nature and not divine is that there is only one way, one truth, and one life that leads to humans being able to fulfill their destiny as their nature intended. Humans, quite simply, don’t have the internal power to lift themselves up to that next level of maturation, one that inexorably moves them toward complexity and fulfillment. I use the map of Teilhard de Chardin as a tool to help me focus not on who God is but on who I am as a human.

It comes down to this. You have been given the gifts of reason and freedom to choose what you will make your center. God can not make you choose anything you do not want. Being the One who left fingerprints on all of reality, which then compelled reality toward a destination of fulfillment while using the complexity of the matter and the movement of time, God tells Adam and Eve how to avoid the minefields that cause the death of our natural destiny. Adam and Eve, our archetypal parents, chose the wrong way, and thus truth became fuzzy and the life they would lead is permeated by original sin (Genesis 2-3). Humanity is not evil or rotten as some think, but rather wounded by Original Sin. It takes work to get anything done, and humans don’t take to that easily. Those born now are inflected with that original sin of Adam and Eve. Genesis is a book of stories whispered to multiple authors to nudge humanity on the path that would eventually to a redeeming (buying back) the archetypal fault of Adam and Eve through an individual and personal affirmation that eating of that tree of knowledge of good and evil was wrong and that, through Christ, individuals are once again restored to adoption as sons and daughters of the Father, but with a caveat.

We now have two citizenships as Catholics, one of the earth that still harbors all the hurricane-force winds of the World’s values (not as bad as incapable of fulfilling human destiny as adopted sons and daughters of the Father) and that of the citizenship of the kingdom of heaven. All those who take up their cross to follow in the path of Christ must die to that self that covets the allures and treasures of the world. I do that by making Christ the one center of my life, that Christ Principle, that, if taken away, the building would collapse because there is no cornerstone. Each person, no matter what you believe, has the opportunity to place at their center what they think the purpose of life might be. As you might be wondering, not all centers are of equal merit. The problem for disciples of the Master is that there are competing whispers from this or that way saying, “Come follow me.” No one ever said being a Catholic would be easy. But, as my Lay Cistercian Way points out, “just because your path is rocky, doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path.” I sit on that couch in the upper room of my inner self and wait for the energy of God (the Holy Spirit) to overshadow me. I can absorb only as much as I have chosen to do so (capacitas dei) and must daily convert my false self (citizenship in the world) to that of an adopted son (daughter) (citizenship in the kingdom of heaven). Each day begins anew until I die. Without the presence of Christ being present to me, I wither on the vine and die, just as Adam and Eve did.

The genius of the Incarnation is that God wants to lift humanity up to share in the destiny for which our humanity yearns. Jesus had to empty Himself of divinity (I don’t quite know what that means other than a divine act of love for me and all other humans) to assume our nature, now being dual in nature (divinity and humanity), so that he could be a ransom for many to the Father and allow each one of us to make it into that last dimension of being fully human, to be lifted up through, with, and in Christ and presented a homeless person who has been chosen by the Father to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. Our destiny, our home, is now with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, although we are not God, nor do humans have either the capability or capacity to know God face to face.

The genius of God is that, as Magister Noster, Jesus did not come down to teach us how to prove that God exists or not because, to do so, He would have to use measurements and equations that even the best scientific minds or philosophers have neither the capability to understand nor the capacity to hold its meaning. Jesus became one of us to SHOW us what it means to be fully human, to know how to access the energy it takes to move to the next level of evolution, adoption as a son or daughter of the Father, and the power to sustain that belief until we die. Jesus, our Magister Noster, taught his disciples to love others as Christ loved us. (Philippians 2:5-12) Each day, as Lay Cistercian, I remind myself of this fact, written down in the Rule of St. Benedict and enshrined in the Gospel of St. John 20:30-31, that I come to believe I must not take my adoption for granted each day. I have been a pilgrim in a foreign land since Baptism, but my New Jerusalem is The Body of Christ, the Church, and the Real Presence of Christ Himself in the Eucharist and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Christ did not give us a formula for proving the existence of divinity because to people of the time of Christ (and for those who are scientists, philosophers, psychologists, teachers, and moms and dads), we don’t speak the language of God–silence. Christ told us to go to that upper room, lock the door, sit on the couch, and wait. God speaks to each one of us if we know how to listen to the whispers that come from silence and resonate in our hearts. It takes placing myself there in Lectio Divina in a place of silence and solitude, not one of physical silence, but to go inside ourselves with the assurance that God will whisper what the hurricane of the world drowns out with all the interference. It takes Faith (energy) from the Holy Spirit to even hear with the “ear of the heart.”

The late monk and my instructor at St. Meinrad School of Theology, Father Aidan Kavanaugh, O.S.B., made statements in our class of Sacramental Theology about a little old lady who sat in the back bench of the church with eyes lowered and repeating over and over, “Jesus, Son of God, Savior, have mercy on me a sinner. He called this seemingly lowly person one who knows more, loves more, and can be what Christ wanted us to become, more than all the learned doctors and theologians with all their fancies theories. I would include all of us in that statement. Mrs. Murphy put herself in the condition where she could listen to the whispers of God in her heart. No words, no agenda on her part, no prayers. Just love and gratitude that Christ loved us first and made us friends. Now, Eucharist becomes you and your friend doing what humans alone could not do, to approach the Father, through with and in Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit, to say, “All honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, Forever and Ever. Amen. If you can’t see that with the eyes of Faith, nor hear it with “the ear of your heart,” you won’t hear the whispers of God to you, “You are my son and daughter; this day I have begotten you.” What a terrible waste of your humanity.

MY LAY CISTERCIAN REFLECTIONS ON HOW GOD WHISPERS TO ME

1. I MUST PREPARE MY ROOM TO RECEIVE THE WHISPERS OF GOD — Previously, I shared with you about dual citizenships, one way in which I move deeper into my innermost self to be present in the Real Presence of Christ. To prepare my room, I must clean it and make it as bright as possible so that Christ has a place to stay that is more suitable than the stable in which He was born. My Lay Cistercian Way is one where I am a penitent man (woman), realizing that I must convert myself daily to be more like Christ. This habit makes me realize who Christ is and who I am in that relationship. St. Benedict makes this a key component of conversion morae, the constant realization that I am not just a citizen of the World but also of the realm of the Spirit. These two citizenships, which are complimentary, are not equal in what they produce. Because the citizenship of the Spirit (Galatians 5) produces energy that not only sustains my life on earth but allows me to receive into myself the power of adoption from the Father. I do this when I consciously abandon my earthly citizenship as my center and reaffirm through the belief that “Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.” In my Lectio Divina steps (lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio), I try to concentrate on the steps rather than just sitting on the couch. It takes time to prepare my room to receive Christ. I must ensure it is clean by praying to the Holy Spirit for the energy to be humble and convert (not subvert) my will to Christ’s. The ratio for me simply raises my mind and heart to the reality that it is God I will be sitting next to and that I should be still and silent (in mind and heart) to be able to listen to the whispers or the heartbeat of Christ next to me. (RB: 7:10) My prayers vary from time to time but always reflect the example of St. Charles de Foucauld, who stressed abandonment of all in favor of gaining all that matters in seeking to have in me the mind of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5-12) To receive the whispers of God, those who abandoned everything literally to seek God each day in the desert embraced silence, solitude, a life of penitential prayer, and work in the context of community. Our heritage is bulging with those who have shown us how to take the words of Christ and make them real to my age, and in particular, in my personal upper room of my inner self.

3. ALL I HAVE TO DO IS PLACE MYSELF, VOLUNTARILY, IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD AND WAIT. My Lay Cistercian Way is how I look at the Cistercian practices and charisms and form an ongoing habit whereby I can realize the promises I made in my Lifetime Profession before Dom Augustine. I only have human power, quite limiting and corruptible. With Christ as my template of Truth and the Holy Spirit as my source of power outside of myself, my adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father, I am lifted up to the Father as a sacrifice like that of Abraham, as was Christ on the cross to atone for the sins of many and to be a ransom for all humanity. It is only in, with, and through being in the presence of Christ in my intentional placement on a couch, being still in the silence and solitude of my heart as I lift up my will to beat next to the heart of Christ, that I become more than my nature intended. I approach the Sacred with the capacitas dei that I have experienced through a lifetime of struggles, failures, reconciliations, and abandonment of my will to that of the Father. Ironically, I find out that the more I link myself to what I consider to be the way, the truth, and leading that life, the more I am fulfilling my humanity at its highest level.

4. ALL THE PRAYERS IN THE WORLD, ALL THE TIMES YOU WENT TO THE UPPER ROOM IN THE PAST, DON’T COUNT FOR WHAT YOU DO NOW. Being in the presence of Christ means I must tame my human nature to do something that it is not accustomed to do. We thrive on instant gratification and achieving our emotional rewards. Humans don’t like to be told what to do. We don’t like sitting alone with “nothing to do.” My attention span when I first attempted contemplative practices was less than 8 seconds. Gradually, as I kept coming back to the practice of contemplation, realizing that contemplation is an art to be learned and not automatically gifted, I began to relax and slow down. Later on, I learned that this is abandonment and dying to my false self and it takes a lifetime to try to master but never succeed. Once I say, “Jesus is Son of God, Savior,” I will spend every moment until I die trying to keep myself centered on Christ as my Principle of Truth. My life is that of the cross, not that I am fanatically religious in thinking that all I have to do is pray, pray, and pray, and all my problems will be solved. My life seems more like a simple fishing boat with oars. I have to keep the boat updated daily (cleaning off barnacles or slime, fixing holes, caulking, and storing it onshore where it will be safe). Christ has told me that He will help me keep my boat safe and clean. In the upper room of my inner self, the place where the late Stephen Hawking could not look, I merely sat there and waited. Sitting is my prayer. Waiting is my prayer. I can hear the whispers of Christ when my heart beats in sync next to his. Communication is from my humanity approaching the Christ Principle and asking that He give me what I need to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.

5. GOD WHISPERS TO EACH HUMAN IN THAT UPPER ROOM OF THEIR INNER SELF God’s whispers are always the same, telling me to love others as He loves me. Being present with the divine energy of pure knowledge, pure love, and pure service (the Image of God). My human capabilities and capacities cannot possibly take God in the Divinity into my Humanity without causing my neurons to fry themselves. So, how is it possible that I, a sinful human, can approach the Sacred with any prayer? The answer is I can’t, with one grand exception given to humans by God. Jesus Christ had to become one of us in nature to save me from being human and unable to move to that next level of my evolution. (Philippians 2:5-12) (Refer to the Teilhard map and the Christ movement and complexity.) Each of us is able to approach the Sacred in our own unique way, with those life experiences we have chosen to live out as our center. I am not you; you are not me; God is not us; we, most certainly, are not God. There is only one way to the Sacred: through, with, and in Christ Jesus to the Father’s glory by the Holy Spirit’s power.

Next: THE GOD WHISPERER: Taming humans to love fiercely.