Nov 15: The One Word of God Spoken to Us All

English Apocalypse (1250 A.D.): The Angel Testifies

Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Reading I: Rev 1:1-4; 2:1-5

"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw (NRSV, Rev 1-2).”

Lord God, all who have accepted your gift of divine life and live by that life, hear your word spoken to us. All are called to be a holy priesthood; all have direct access to you in your Son, Jesus Christ. Still, although in faith we accept that you speak to all of us your one word, even as you share your very life with us, we are so filled with awe that often we draw back as if it were not possible.

We are like Abraham who, in speaking to you, Lord, saw only three strangers. Or Jacob who, in life struggle with you, was convinced it was merely an angel. Or, Isaiah who, when he finally realized that you, Lord, were speaking to him, could only accept it in terms of a vision of your majestic presence within the temple precincts surrounded by six-winged seraphs. And even then his first response was not, “Here am I. Send me,” but rather “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!"

Heavenly Father, you are the One. You are unchanging, in full possession of your being. Humankind has a history, a here and there, a now and then. Hopefully, this history is always moving towards you, the one true future. But you, Father, do not have a history because you just are. You do not act here and there, now and then. You just act. Your act is your being; your being is your act. You simply are who you are.

In your one act that is your being, you speak one word, one ever present word, spoken once and for all.

Father, because you do not have a history but are ever present, the word you speak, because it is spoken once and for all, is not a gradual revelation. But we who live in history hear that word according to our time and place, according to our state of grace or lack of it, according to our enlightened ability to understand or our misunderstanding.

It is because we live in history, Lord, that there is a story to salvation, and an apparent gradual unfolding of revelation. It is because we live in history that we find this insight here and another there, one now and a different one later.

In your Son, Jesus Christ, the end has come. Jesus Christ hears clearly and understands fully. He mediates this truth to us. We struggle to make it our own, bit by bit, as we continue to wend our way through history towards you, our final goal.

Your servant John sat on the Island of Patmos, it is written, and came to an understanding of the final days. He says in the opening lines of the Book of Revelation that the message was brought to him by an angel from God. Oh, how little even the holiest and wisest among us understand. Only a few verses later John will proclaim that we are all a kingdom of priests. Yes, we are a kingdom of priests with direct access to you, Lord our God. Help us, in Jesus Christ, to realize that for those of us who live your life, the truth is given. We need not wait for an emissary from on high. It is given from the beginning of creation and for each of us it is given from the womb.

Because we are creatures who live in history we must grow gradually in the truth even as we are called to grow constantly in divine life. There are many to help us: Jesus himself; what the sacred writers have written; what the community of the faithful, the Church, believes and teaches; not to forget the wisdom of all of our sisters and brothers, even those who say that they cannot believe.

Lord, as I seek always to grow in your life, I must yearn as well to grow in understanding of who you are and what you call us all to become. Strengthen me to seek out the wisdom of the ages from the Church and the world around me, but call me first and foremost to turn inward to the depth of my being where I shall find you, closer to me than I am to myself, speaking your one word as you share your life with me.

Alleluia. Amen.