Lenten journey: simplicity of God's revelations

     The phrase that jumps out at me from today is "I do not know whether Jesus is a sinner or not, I only know this much, I was once blind, and now I see". This one line speaks volumes about faith and about God.  There are so many theological avenues to pursue here. The idea of the blind man's guilt or his parents guilt? ( do we still beleive things like that?); The cure , which was unsolicited ( an outright gift from God ) and many others.

      After 20 solid years of Catholic education including 3 for my Masters while in seminary, I am used to boatloads of reasons for things, apologetics, rationalizations and intricate treatises on why things are the way they are. Actually why things are the way the Church believes they are. As a foretaste of my Episcopal faith, I always held to a belief which is probably very non-Catholic. That involves experiencing and seeing God.

     As long as I can remember I have believed that God reveals himself / herself to humans in ways that every human should be able to see. Since God wishes to reveal himself to us, it makes sense that he should be easily visible to all humankind. The Roman way would seem to intellectualize God's revelations to the point of obscurity and has contorted what should be very visible signs. Further, the extreme respect and honor given to such intellectualizing often finds itself at odds with what seems obvious to everyone else in the world. At this point the Church would step in and say it is either tradition, divine revelation or 'from the chair of Peter' ( ex cathedra ).

      Men like Saint Francis seem to have done a fine job of revealing God's word, intent and life by the simplicity with which they lived their lives giving  example to generations of men and women to this very day.  In contrast, the intellectual ramblings of St. Thomas, while impressive, have only held back true reform and revelation that I am sure continues to this day. That is, The Spirit is still very much alive and God is still revealing the mysteries of His love and the world He created.

      I think I shall take this day of worship to focus on the simplest forms of love. Whether it is cuddling with my spouse, seeing the face of God in our beloved pussycat, witnessing the love of a mother and child or basking in the beauty of nature.

     How simple but how awesome are the things you will see today? and God reaches out to us. always.