THE MYSTERY THAT IS OUR BLESSING IN CHRIST


WEDNESDAY, FIFTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP 

Isa 10:5-7,13-16; Ps 94:5-10,14-15; Mt 11:25-27

Mystery revealed to mere Children

The mystery of all the heavenly blessings with which the Father has blessed all of us is the focus of our reflection this week. This mystery has many aspects which we have been touching on throughout the week. These heavenly blessings are all found in the Eternal Word, the Only Begotten Son of God from all eternity. Hence, the Father granted us all these heavenly blessings when he willed that his Son would assume the nature of man for the love of us and our salvation. The first part of the mystery is Trinitarian. In the Trinity, the Son proceeds from the Father, and all that the Father has also belongs to the Son. So, the Eternal Word is God with his Father and equal in the divine nature. This is part of the content of the mystery that caused our Lord to exclaim in the gospel. “Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

The Trinitarian truth would not have concerned us were it not revealed. But it concerns us now that God has revealed it because it constitutes our heavenly blessings. This mystery of the Trinity was revealed to man when God the Son assumed the nature of man and became like us in all things except sin. This love outpouring of God towards man gives us a clear understanding of the intention of God when he says: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” The incarnation of God the Son is, in principle, the making of man in the likeness of God. Because God willed this before the creation, he had indeed blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ before the foundation of the world. We can never comprehend this mystery fully in our mortal state. It will be our glory and the source of ecstatic joy in heaven. It is the cause of the exclamation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel. “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.” It is the eternal will of the Father to bless man by revealing his Son to man, and by so doing, he admitted man into the Trinitarian life and glory. The Father reveals the Son, and the Son, in turn, reveals the Father to us, bringing us to the communion of the Holy Spirit in love.

To enter into this heavenly communion, we must divest ourselves of self and whatever we think we possess. The ignorance of this great mystery of our heavenly blessings is ignorance of who we truly are in God. When we lack this illumination or revelation of God, we arrogate divine power to ourselves and the works of our hands. The Lord mocked Assyria through the prophet Isaiah for entertaining such a stupid thought when she was only used as a club by God to punish nations. “Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the club brandished by me in my fury! I sent him against a godless nation; I gave him commission against a people that provokes me, to pillage and to plunder freely and to stamp down like the mud in the streets. But he did not intend this, his heart did not plan it so.” All our temporal blessings are from God in heaven. God our Father governs everything that comes to us by his providence. But only the children understand this mystery. The learned and clever in the worldly sense do not penetrate this mystery revealed by the word of God. We become children of God by constantly reading, meditating, and contemplating the word of God, wherein we encounter Jesus Christ. In Christ, we understand this mystery, which is not given to the senses but spiritually discerned. 

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace to understand the heavenly glory to which you call us in your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that we may devote our whole minds, hearts, and strength in seeking and doing your will on earth, to be worthy of your communion in heaven. 

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