Eternal truth

The passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus are all aspects of his glorification.  Taken together, they complete his mission and vindicate his claims of who he was and who he is. Like us, the disciples were locked into the strict frame of time past, present and future.  From God's perspective, so to speak, all time is present; there is one event of the glorification of the Son. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus - Death on a Friday Afternoon


There have been a handful of precious times when I've felt I've received a glimpse into eternity.  I'll never forget the strongest one: at Mass one Sunday, I felt as if I was present at the Last Supper, and at the cross, and in the room where Jesus first appeared to the disciples after his resurrection, and at every Eucharist that has ever been and ever will be celebrated, and with the countless saints gathered around the throne of grace worshiping for all eternity, all at the same time.  It was a momentary insight into what this eternity might be like, and even thinking back on it leaves me longing to experience it in full.  There have been just a few similar times during prayer that I've had such a sense, but they've been rare.

People suggest that an eternity of "doing nothing but worshiping God" will be eternal boredom.  "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints; the sinners are much more fun," suggested Billy Joel.  This represents our finite misunderstanding of both eternity and our infinite God.  Heaven will not be sad, boring, or "no fun."

The reality of salvation is definitively settled, but history continues to be cruciform, a way of the cross for pilgrims headed home.  Salvation is "now" and "not yet"; it is a matter of certitude and of seeing in a mirror dimly; it is a present possession and a hope to be worked out with fear and trembling. 


As one might expect from a story centered in the cross point, Christian faith is a crosscutting dynamic that cannot be contained within familiar time frames,  conceptual cages, or psychological definitions of reality . . . We think we have grasped the matter and pinned it down, and then we have to start out all over again, always becoming as little children in our understanding.  The truth is elusive not in order to tease us, but to keep us ever relying not upon our own understanding but upon the One who is the truth. 


Having needed the last four months to work my way through this wonderful book, I won't accuse Fr. Neuhaus of oversimplification here.  Shorthand, maybe.  The truth is elusive because he is infinite and we are finite, and that is why we must rely upon the One who is the infinite truth rather than our own limited understanding.  Only the infinite and the eternal can bring us limited and timebound creatures into communion with the truth.  We cannot aspire in our wildest dreams to get there on our own, for our finite selves cannot dream that big.  But in truth it is only our foolish pride that would long for a truth outside of the perfectly loving truth who does everything possible to draw us into the truth we cannot reach by our own efforts.

Only then does he commend himself, and all of us, into the Father's infinitely loving hands.

I must mention how Fr. Neuhaus' understanding of the "way of the cross" goes so far beyond the perfunctory stations of the cross which are rushed through in many parishes during the season of Lent.  A true reflection on the way of the cross devotion leads to a fuller recognition of our lives in the context of the way.  If you ever get a chance to join Jubilee in praying this devotion in the Dayton area, please take advantage of it.  You'll never think of the "stations" the same way again.

As I draw near to the end of this book, the nuggets on which I wish to reflect follow ever more closely upon each other. I don't know that I'll meet my revised goal of finishing this book and my reflections on it by the end of the Easter season, but of this I am convinced: that artificial time frame doesn't really matter.