* [65:17–18] The new creation (cf. 66:22) is described with apocalyptic exuberance: long life, material prosperity, and so forth. As the former events in 43:18 are to be forgotten, so also the new creation wipes out memory of the first creation.to Jesus Word acting to response to the faith of a royal official to restore life to his son in the Gospel from John.
* [4:43–54] Jesus’ arrival in Cana in Galilee; the second sign. This section introduces another theme, that of the life-giving word of Jesus. It is explicitly linked to the first sign (Jn 2:11). The royal official believes (Jn 4:50). The natural life given his son is a sign of eternal life.
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Don Schwager quotes Gregory the Great, 540-604 A.D, to address the question of why the one who had come for a cure heard the words 'Unless you see signs and portents, you do not believe.'
"Why, then, did he hear the words 'Unless you see signs and portents, you do not believe,' when he believed before he saw the sign? But recall what he was asking, and you will see that his faith was in doubt. He asked Jesus earnestly to come down and heal his son. He was asking for the physical presence of the Lord, who is nowhere absent in his spirit. He had little faith in one he thought could not heal unless he was physically present. If he had believed completely, he would have known that there was no place where God was not present. He was considerably distrustful, then, since it was not the Lord’s greatness he esteemed but his physical presence. He sought a cure for his son even though his faith was in doubt, since he believed that the one he had approached had the power to cure, and yet he thought he was not with his dying son. But the Lord whom he asked to come revealed that he was not absent from the place he was invited to. He who created everything by his will performed the cure by his command alone." (excerpt frpm FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 28.24)Friar Jude Winkler shares background on Trito isaiah, likely written after 539 BCE, in which a universal restoration by the God of all people (Universalism) is described. He notes the parallelism in the Gospel of John between the healing of the official’s son and the raising of Lazarus. The little healing is matched with the restoration of life.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, explains the connectedness understood by St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a Doctor of the Church, who recognized that the human person is a microcosm with a natural affinity for or resonance with its macrocosm, which many call God.
She also saw an inherent connection between the physical world and the divine Presence. This connection translates into energy that is the soul and seed of everything, an inner voice calling you to “Become who you are; become all that you are.” This is our “life wish” or what Carl Jung called the “whole-making spirit.”Hildegard said, “O Holy Spirit, you are the mighty way in which everything that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth, is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.”
Christa Black Gifford is a dynamic worldwide speaker, worship leader, and bestselling songwriter who lives, as a Christian, with a broken, bleeding heart as a consequence of the death of her daughter.
After years of living as a Christian with a broken, bleeding heart that continued to spew out all sorts of unpleasant things, I finally uncovered a mine of precious jewels that seemed too good to be true, but actually was true. And it began with a Holy Spirit–guided journey to the center of my truest self—the heart that Jesus loved so much that He died to live inside of it. I realized that in order to find out what it meant to live each moment from my inheritance of wholeness, I needed to learn how to let the Healer make me whole. And in order to do that, I had to let Him have full access to every emotion, every trauma and shameful truth.
Our deep resonance with life means, as Fr. Richard Rohr reminds the Nature is not a mere scenic backdrop so humans can take over the stage. Creation is in fact a full participant in human transformation, since the outer world is absolutely needed to mirror the true inner world. There are not just two sacraments, or even seven; the whole world is a sacrament!
References
(n.d.). Isaiah, chapter 65 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/isaiah/65
(n.d.). John 4. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/john4.htm
(n.d.). Online Ministries - Creighton University. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html
(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org
(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/
(2016, June 10). How God Can Make You Whole Again -Spiritual Living, Christian Faith. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/how-god-can-make-you-whole-again.html
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