Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and evangelist
Why doesn’t God speak to us? It’s a common lament. Yes, we are taught God speaks through the Word in Scriptures, and that Christ is present in various ways at Mass, and in the poor and marginalized of the our world. But why can’t the Lord just say ‘hello’ from time to time? It seems the life of faith would be a bit easier if we could just talk to God in a typical, carnal chat from time to time.
Thank goodness for today’s psalm. “The heavens declare the Glory of God,” the reading proclaims. I don’t know why God doesn’t like to talk with us in what we view as a ‘normal’ way, but when I look up at the heavens, in day or night, I am filled with the awe and wonder appropriate to an encounter with our Lord. The great hymn adds, “…and all creation is shouting for joy!” When people describe the sciences of life, the Earth’s atmosphere, and the cosmos, a word that keeps popping up is ‘design.’ Everything seems so succinctly and beautifully put together that we can’t help but use a word that necessarily requires there to be a designer, and intelligent wisdom that strikes us with silent admiration.
In our time, we Christians talk a lot about personal encounters with Jesus. For the time we live in, this makes plenty of sense. Our culture values ‘the people,’ and our equal dignity, and so we aren’t necessarily looking for a God-King who is above and better; we prefer the wise, approachable father God who sits at our level and doesn’t mind listening. Again, nothing wrong with approaching our God in a way we can most easily relate to and understand. But sometimes, it’s good to remember that God is not small. The part of God we encounter so intimately is but a tiny piece of the fingernail of a being so immense and complex that we cannot begin to understand even a shadow of what Divinity truly is. And so, “day pours out the word to day, and night to night…” The Spirit is so big she can never stop self-revealing. Let’s remember this the next time we have questions about why God made this world the way it is.
-Chris Nieport