Under The Acacia Tree

We have just begun a new year and a new decade.  It seems impossible that there have already been ten years in the 21st Century, but there it is.   As we launch into a new year we will probably make some New Year’s resolutions.  I thought we might make a resolution as a parish to be more involved in the mystery of being a Catholic community.  Karl Rahner, SJ, was a Jesuit priest and exquisite theologian who taught theology for many years in Germany.  He and the current Pope were considered to be among Germany’s best theologians.  Rahner taught that to be human was to be exposed to the mystery that pervades all being.  To be human is to be inclined to be always questioning, which is basically an orientation to the infinite.  In other words because we are human we are always moving toward a mystery which is beyond any kind of limitation.  St. Augustine said it simply when he marveled, "O Lord, our hearts are restless until they rest in thee."    The answer to our questioning, according to Rahner, is God.  Rahner spoke of God as "Holy Mystery" and as "boundless plenitude." It’s not easy to define God.   But the wonder of God’s mystery is that God freely communicates himself to us, yet remains incomprehensible at the same time.

As we search for meaning in our lives, make the resolutions that we think we help us in that search, we have a chance through one another to recognize the mystery of being Catholic Christians.  We are followers of Jesus.  Because of that we know that God communicates himself to us.  God communicates himself in Jesus, in the Word that we hear each week, and in the Eucharist which is the feast of God’s love that we bring to fruition in our assembly time after time.   God’s plan for us and for our world comes to us through baptism and the Eucharist.  The "mystery" of God becomes visible to us in the mysteries that are proclaimed, celebrated and lived in the Church.  Here in the parish we do all that is possible so that the mysteries are made real to us, so that we can better understand what God is trying to say to us. Sometimes because the Liturgy is so familiar we forget it’s wonder, forget that we are celebrating God’s love for us, forget that we are involved in the mystery that will answer our questioning about who we are and whose we are.  But the mystery is ever present and the more we enter into it, the better we will come to know that answers to so many of life’s difficult questions.

Have a wonderful, and mystery filled New Year. 
 
Rev. John Geaney, CSP
Pastor
January 3, 2010