Third Sunday after Pentecost

Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk 
5th June 2016

Entering into the Depth of the Sacred Heart by Dom Anscar Vonier O.S.B.

The great truths of sacred theology concerning the God Incarnate are considered sometimes to be mere abstractions, incapable of giving life and colour to our Lord's Personality. Nothing could be less true. They all enter into the very life of Our Lord; they make that life one of palpitating interest, precisely because they give us the key to that incomparable superiority of Our Lord's nature, which superiority is of all things the one element we must constantly bear in mind if we are to understand Our Lord's life. When we are in contact with people whom we believe to be possessed of high moral or intellectual qualities, who have done brave deeds or said wise things, the daily ordinary intercourse with them has wonderful charm, owing to our impression that there is a great reserve of superior power in them. Most of our intercourse is of the ordinary character, yet all along we feel that there is something higher, and this latent conviction lends additional charm to the daily urbanities.

This is the kind of simile I would fain propose to those that approach the Son of God. He is the Son of man. He is a perfect man; you will find in Him all the charms of perfect humanity. Go deep into that humanity and love it tenderly; very soon you will find that behind the humanity there is a wonderful reserve of grace that is more than human. You feel its presence, though it may not act directly; but there is such a majesty in that humanity as to make it clear that the humanity is passing into something more than human. If that superhuman element is approached, there again it is such as to point to a tremendous reserve behind it. There is the Divine Personality deeply concealed underneath the created glories and graces, and lending them that infinitude of beauty and possibility which it is so refreshing for the created spirit to catch a glimpse of. Christ's glorious finitudes sweetly and gradually are merged into the infinitudes of His Divine Personality.

We enter into Him as man, His humanity is the door, we go out of His humanity into His angelic life, into His divine life, and our mind finds indeed its pasture in Him.  Nothing could be more refreshing than to read St. John's Gospel in the light of this idea of reserve. The Jewish mind is puzzled, is irritated with this wonderful personality of Christ. They cannot make him out; they quarrel amongst themselves about Him; they feel, in spite of themselves, that there is something extraordinary behind His human appearance. It is not only His miracles that are extraordinary, His whole personality is an enigma. His enemies, in true Jewish fashion, have a ready explanation for this incomprehensible masterfulness of the hated Rabbi. He has within Himself an evil spirit. "The Jews therefore answered and said to him: Do we not say well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?" It might be said without exaggeration that the whole trend of Christ's discourses, as well as the Baptist's testimony in the fourth Gospel, is this: There is more in this man than appears to the eye; even His miracles, great as they are, do not give the measure of His greatness; but they entitle Him to be listened to even when He says that "He and the Father are one".