FACILITIES NEEDED TO SEE GOD

SAINT LUCY, VIRGIN, MARTYR

Eccl 48:1-4,9-12; Ps 80:2-3,15-16,18-19; Mt 17:10-13

Misinterpretation of Signs of Presence

The name and essence of God mean Presence. But we rarely understand and relate to him in that sense. Objectively, God is everywhere, for no place or thing can be without God sustaining it in being. We can hardly internalise this basic truth because of our makeup and manner of operation after the original fall. The original sin of Adam and Eve, which affected all of us, reorganised human awareness and the way we encounter and know reality. Because Adam and Eve departed from the glory of God, which had covered them and conditioned their perception of reality, they lost their original ability to comprehend the totality of reality. Their nakedness, which they became aware of, is a testimony to the lost habitual glory of God covering them. They were not naked before, for the glory of God was their internal and external apparel. The awareness of their nakedness was not just external; it was also internal, for they departed from the grace of God. Their attempt to hide from God is a testimony to the fact that they now see God as a distant God, removed from their immediate experience of reality. We inherited from them this reduced perception of reality, marked by the absence of God.  

To commune properly with us, God gives us the facilities lacking from what we inherited from our first parents in the form of theological virtues. Virtues are operational structures that our faculties or powers receive to enable them to reach their objects properly. Faith, hope, and charity are theological virtues because they are received directly from God at our conversion to enable us to profess faith in God, hope in his promises, and love him as he should be loved. We are able to see and relate with God within and around us when we receive these virtues from God. But without them, we would miss the signs or communication from God and misinterpret the ones we see. When Israel was led astray from God by King Ahab, they could not hear the word of God nor understand his warning signs. Only Elijah the prophet, endowed with unique faith in the word of God, was able to understand and communicate the will of God to his people. He was a mouthpiece of God through his faithful obedience to God’s word. Hence, his praise is sung in the reading. “How glorious you were in your miracles, Elijah! Has anyone reason to boast as you have? Taken up in the whirlwind of fire, in a chariot with fiery horses; designated in the prophecies of doom to allay God’s wrath before the fury breaks, to turn the hearts of fathers towards their children, and to restore the tribes of Jacob.” Conversion restores the lost glory, which was never removed, but we departed or turned away from it and its source in God.

Our conversion and profession of faith in God is a gradual return to the presence of God we abandon through our sins. Because the grace and glory are restored gradually as we make our way back to God’s presence, our understanding of God’s communication to us grows proportionately as we give up our sinful ways and sensible fancies. Because the Son of Man is the complete likeness of God and the principle of our restoration to God, he is the true expression of God’s will, and all divine communications have their full meaning in him. Only he understood the sign that John the Baptist was for the people. He explains this to his disciples. “‘Why do the scribes say that Elijah has to come first?’ ‘True, Elijah is to come to see that everything is once more as it should be; however, I tell you that Elijah has come already and they did not recognise him but treated him as they pleased; and the Son of Man will suffer similarly at their hands.’” We need to rivet our attention on the Son of Man and walk with him on the way, so that we may understand every communication from God.

Walking with and in Christ, the Virgin and Martyr, Saint Lucy, understood the true meaning of life and everything in it, and made the right choices and decisions to lay down her life for Christ. She was one of the early martyrs during the persecution of Emperor Diocletian, which started in 303. Devotion to her commenced very early and spread to all parts of the Church, such that her name was included in the Roman Canon of the Mass. May her prayers help us to attentively receive the divine Word and bring him forth in our lives like the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Let us pray: May the glorious intercession of the Virgin and Martyr Saint Lucy give us new heart, we pray, O Lord, so that we may celebrate her heavenly birthday in this present age and so behold things eternal. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.