The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today assist our meditation on how we learn the truth about the nature of God and our relationship to the Divine.
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| The Spirit of Truth |
The reading from the Book of Acts describes the speech of Paul in Athens to Greek philosophers building on the theme “In him we live and move and have our being.”
* [17:22–31] In Paul’s appearance at the Areopagus he preaches his climactic speech to Gentiles in the cultural center of the ancient world. The speech is more theological than christological. Paul’s discourse appeals to the Greek world’s belief in divinity as responsible for the origin and existence of the universe. It contests the common belief in a multiplicity of gods supposedly exerting their powers through their images. It acknowledges that the attempt to find God is a constant human endeavor. It declares, further, that God is the judge of the human race, that the time of the judgment has been determined, and that it will be executed through a man whom God raised from the dead. The speech reflects sympathy with pagan religiosity, handles the subject of idol worship gently, and appeals for a new examination of divinity, not from the standpoint of creation but from the standpoint of judgment.1
Psalm 148 is praise for God’s universal glory.
* [Psalm 148] A hymn inviting the beings of heaven (Ps 148:1–6) and of earth (Ps 148:7–14) to praise God. The hymn does not distinguish between inanimate and animate (and rational) nature.2
In the Gospel of John, Jesus sets the expectation for better understanding when the Spirit of truth comes.
* [16:13] Declare to you the things that are coming: not a reference to new predictions about the future, but interpretation of what has already occurred or been said.3
Eileen Wirth comments that thinking of her mother helps her relate to the image of God that St. Paul paints in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. “Nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.”
Since God needs nothing from us, why bother to worship and serve him? Why not just lead a life centered on our own pleasures?We worship and pray because we need God’s inspiration, consolation and guidance in coping with our daily problems. Often, we are rewarded with insights or simply the courage to endure. If we don’t pray and worship, it wouldn’t bother God but it would create a void in our lives.
Similarly, God doesn’t need us to give him anything but failing to give would hurt us because as St. Francis tells us, “it is in giving that we receive.” In other words, giving is its own reward because it makes us happy.
Do you know any happy people who are selfish or narcissistic? Do self-centered people ever receive the love they so desperately crave?4
Don Schwager quotes Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) who explains the progressive work of the Spirit in guiding the disciples of Jesus in all the truth.
"Accordingly, when he says, 'He will teach you all truth' or 'will guide you into all truth,' I do not think the fulfillment is possible in anyone's mind in this present life. For who is there, while living in this corruptible and soul-oppressing body (Wisdom 9:15), that can know all truth when even the apostle says, 'We know in part'? But it is effected by the Holy Spirit, of whom we have now received the promise (2 Corinthians 1:21), that we shall attain also to the actual fullness of knowledge that the same apostle references when he says, 'But then face to face' and 'Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known' (1 Corinthians 13:12). He is not talking about something he knows fully in this life but about something that would still be in the future when he would attain that perfection. This is what the Lord promised us through the love of the Spirit, when he said, 'He will teach you all truth' or 'will guide you unto all truth.'" (TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 96.4)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Acts 17:15, 22–18:1 comments that Paul’s approach can help us relate to people around us. It can help when we are watching the news or disheartened by the negativity we see online. Look for what may be going on behind hurting hearts and try to identify the positive in the situation. Take what is familiar to someone and expand upon it. Each person is loved by God, and if they are far from him, he wants nothing more than to draw them back.
Even though God condemns sin, he always wants to save the sinner. This truth motivated Paul’s preaching, and it can help you grow in compassion. It can help you find common ground instead of shutting the door right off the bat. And you never know what God can do with an open door!
“Lord, help me to be like Paul!”6
Friar Jude Winkler explains how the learned of Athens, influenced by Stoic philosophy, find resurrection from the dead a difficult concept. When Paul went to Corinth, he spoke of the wisdom of the Cross. Friar Jude reminds us the Paraclyte speaks that which comes from the Father and Jesus bound by Love to share the Truth with us.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, recalls the Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266–1308), who wrote that “God first wills Christ as his supreme work.” [1] In other words, God’s “first idea” and priority was to make the Godself both visible and shareable. The word used in the Bible for this idea was Logos, which was taken from Greek philosophy, and which Fr. Richard would translate as the “Blueprint” for reality. The whole of creation—not just Jesus—is the partner in the divine dance. Everything is the “child of God”—no exceptions. When you think of it, what else could anything be? All created beings must, in some way, carry the divine DNA of their Creator.
Without a sense of the inherent sacredness of the world—in every tiny bit of life and death—we struggle to see God in our own reality, let alone to respect reality, protect it, or love it. The consequences of this ignorance are all around us, seen in the way we have exploited and damaged our fellow human beings, the dear animals, the web of growing things, the land, the waters, and the very air. It took until the twenty-first century for a pope to clearly say this, in Pope Francis’ prophetic document Laudato Si′. May it not be too late and may the unnecessary gap between practical seeing (science) and holistic seeing (religion) be fully overcome. They still need each other.
Franciscan mysticism has an incarnational worldview, which is the profound recognition of the presence of the divine in literally “every thing” and “every one.” It is the key to mental and spiritual health, as well as to a kind of basic contentment and happiness. An incarnational worldview is the only way we can reconcile our inner worlds with the outer one, unity with diversity, physical with spiritual, individual with corporate, and divine with human.7
The closeness of God expressed by Paul in Athens and shared in Franciscan spirituality is Truth shared with us through our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
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