Blog # 459 WHY?

Blog # 459     WHY?

         Even though we may have received 100% on our final spelling exam in school, that does not mean we know how to spell every word that is in the English dictionary.  And even if we did know how to spell every word there, there are dictionaries in German, Spanish, French and in numerous other languages  all filled with words that can be spelled correctly or not. This would be true as well for knowledge we might have of physics, medicine, music, history, literature or whatever other field of study it might be that we have learned or experienced.  For all but God there is always more, more than we have known or accomplished, more than we could imagine.  That is true absolutely of us.
        For God, however, and for God alone, this is not true.  Beyond God nothing whatsoever, is, or ever shall be.  Beyond God there is no more.  All that exists, ever, is present to God, comes from God, and is in one form or another in union with God.  A single drop of water is an object of a  complicated design.  And there is no design without a designer.  Though we might be sitting 'all alone' on a remote mountain top, God is there, in all that exists, within and around us.  Nothing is apart from God. Nothing is real without God creating it to be real. Beyond God there is no more.

         God claimed this truth about Himself both in the Hebrew Bible and in Jesus.  "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth..." (Gen.1:1).  "Hear O Israel!  The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore  you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength." ( Dt. 6"4,5; Mk. 12: 29,30), " And how could a thing remain unless you willed it; or be preserved had it not been called forth by you?"  ( Wis. 11: 25).  "I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last I will also be ." (Is. 41 4).  "Thus says the Lord...I am the first and I am  the last; there is no God but me." (Is. 44:6).

            There is but one God.  There is no other. That is a fundamental truth of all that we believe.  As a consequence of it, all of creation is connected or related in God.  No one nor anyone exists by accident. Nothing and no one has or will ever 'fall through the cracks' or be unaccounted for in God.  There are no exceptions.  String beans, garlic, water, moons, stars, 'our' sun, the 108, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000  molecules of air in a single normal breath, the time it takes to walk across a  Street, the 5,000,000 or so red corpuscles and 10,000 white in a drop of blood the size of a pinhead, the upwards of 200 bones in our bodies, the 12,000 000, 000 cells in our brains, the flesh of Jesus and His blood poured out for love of the Father and for us.  All of creation is connected in God.  God is before, after, and within it all.

            All of this is true whether we believe it or not.  If we believe it, we make it our own, and it becomes true for us and in us. The string beans, the garlic, and all that I have listed above exist in the truth about them without any comprehension or awareness of it on their part.  Human creatures on the other hand have a capacity to understand in a limited way what it means to say that God is real, God is unique, God is our Creator. 

              Through our advances in scientific investigation and experience we grow in the amount of knowledge we have of what God has created and how it developed.  We can see and understand in a limited way how one creature depends upon another and why certain things are true, such as how plants depend upon the sun and how this occurs, but we do not have the capacity of knowing and understanding, on our own, why all creation exists.  Since the why of all creation is the will of God, it
could only be known completely by us through being revealed  to us by God. This was done in a limited way in the consciences and experiences of human creatures from the beginning.  The desire for and appreciation of peace, happiness, freedom, companionship, support, and love for one another were in the content of what human creatures, made to the image and likeness of God, could see as a purpose or 'why' of creation.

             Then in Abraham, Moses, the Prophets, and finally in Jesus the purpose or why of creation was focused more and more precisely. The purpose or 'why' of all the rest of creation was to be found in the 'why' of humans.  It was that we, made capable for this by being created in the image and likeness of God, should be loved by God and return God's love.  This Jesus did most perfectly in His life death resurrection and ascension to the Father's glory in Heaven.

              The flesh of Jesus was as limited as ours.  The sun is as warm for us as it was for Jesus.  But united as He was with the Word of God as a single person His love was divine. Jesus received God's love perfectly in His perfect obedience to the Father's will throughout His life on earth.   He returned God's love perfectly in His unconditional trust and total love on the Cross.  Now the 'why' of His coming was achieved.  He would ascend back to the glory He had with the Father from all eternity to 'prepare a place'  for all who believe in Him, that united with Him through faith and Baptism and sharing His obedience to the Father's will in our lives on earth we too might be glorified in the Fathers eternal life in Heaven.