Gathering our impression

The text today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary covers a lot of territory and provides a link to many impressions, expectations and experiences people have of God. The short declaration within the First Letter of John that “God is love” is often quoted at the surface of our meditations, as if it told the whole story. The paradox is that this is entirely true but without some experience or examples we are stopping at a cliché understanding. Friar Jude Winkler finds the proof of the Love of God in the humanity of Jesus. He points out the realized eschatology of the Gospel of John which presents the union of our spirit with the Spirit of God through Jesus as our entrance into the eternal intimate relationship with God. The Letter of John is also a text with the Trinity present in our experience of the Divine. Friar Jude tells us of the mention of a final judgement as the futurist eschatology in this text. The tension between these ideas is the plane in which we can operate day to day as our experience evolves to improve with age our comfort with ambiguity. We emphasize with the gob struck disciples in the boat who are struggling with fear. They have apprehension about their human lives and at the same time are attempting to understand how the attractiveness of Jesus Shepherd who feeds heart and soul with Divine appreciation of the goodness of God, attracting all nations to His presence, like the worthy king praised by the psalmist, has become fear routed in awe and wonder of the One who feeds as Yahweh did in the desert. Friar Jude explains how Jesus “passes by” in the text from the Gospel of Mark in the manner of the Presence of God passing by Moses and the Prophets in the Hebrew Testament. We often wish the paradoxes in our understanding of the experience of intimate relationship with God would be resolved. The Creature struggles to know Creator and in the journey sees much that testifies to God is Love.