Revelation of God

Revelation of God is a phrase which comes to mind through the texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary today. The praise of the psalmist for the steadfast love, healing and mercy of God is closer to our experience of God than perhaps either the encounter of Moses with the burning bush inExodus or the praise of Jesus, Son for the revelation of the Father through the Son to the childlike in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus points to the understanding of the childlike of God in this Gospel. Friar Jude Winkler comments that the rabbinical thought at the time of Jesus was that greater study of the Law and the Tradition would reveal God to seekers. The danger of the study approach is that we build our own concept of the Divine into which we require that God fit. The openness of the childlike is to listen and not form opinions based on what they know. The Father knowing the Son and the Son knowing the Father is the relationship which reveals God. The childlike explore relationship without setting preconditions. Those inflected with building their own castle want to tie experience to structures, rules and human constraints in the time and space we understand and study. In accord with Moses, our humanity recognizes Holiness and our inadequacy to follow the will of God without the relationship offered by God to be with us along the journey. The childlike respond with the enthusiasm of “Let’s go!”