GOD WITH US AND WITHIN US


MONDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT   

Isa 65:17-21; Ps 30:2,4-6,11-13; Jn 4:43-54

The Wonder of the New Creation

The spiritual recreation of the human person is something stupendous. Although there is a way to consider it a new creation, and another way to consider it a recreation of the human person. In the former view, the mission of the Son of God in human nature is a new creation, for it is a realisation of what was not there before. By our nature, which is rational, God is in us; for God is in all things by their respective natures. However, as we explained in our previous reflection, among material creatures, the human person stands out due to the rationality of our nature. Our rational nature was created as a dwelling place of God in a unique way; it contains God in a way different from the common way every other nature contains Him. Our rationality enables us to contain God on a personal level; that is, as the object of our act of knowing and loving. The divine nature being rational and the cause of rational creatures, God presents Himself to rational natures as the light of their knowledge and the lover of their persons. In this sense, in which God begins to be present to the human person as the cause of his knowledge and love of his heart, the Incarnation of the Son of God is the beginning of a new spiritual creation. This is what Jesus means when he calls himself the Light that has entered the world.

The mission of the Eternal Word in human nature is a new spiritual creation of God for human persons. God states this through the prophet Isaiah in the passage before us. “Thus says the Lord: Now I create new heavens and a new earth, and the past will not be remembered, and will come no more to men’s minds. Be glad and rejoice forever and ever for what I am creating, because I now create Jerusalem ‘Joy’ and her people ‘Gladness.’ I shall rejoice over Jerusalem and exult in my people.” It is here made evident that the new divine work is totally spiritual, for it has a direct relationship to God. It is true that God rejoiced over the material creation; this new creation will cause God to be personally glad and joyful. We say personally because the new creation, the new human persons, will be like God in the sense that they will know the truth, desire, love, and choose the good. Because of this, they will live eternally. “To die at the age of a hundred will be dying young; not to live to be a hundred will be the sign of a curse.” This is what the Incarnation of the Eternal Word has achieved for us: man is made like God.

The mission of the Son of God could also be considered a recreation or a renewal in the sense that He uses the old world as the foundation of the new work. By his Incarnation, the whole material creation has been renewed to be a sacrament of his real presence among us. The sacramental place or role of the material creation was demonstrated for us in yesterday’s Gospel, when Jesus used the mixture of his spittle and the soil to daub the eyes of the man born blind; after which he sent him to wash at the pool of Siloam, which gave him his sight. By healing the son of the court official with his mere words in the Gospel of today, the Church wants us to understand the Lord’s intentionality in using the sacramental form in his salvific works. “Now there was a court official there whose son was ill at Capernaum and, hearing that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judaea, he went and asked him to come and cure his son as he was at the point of death. Jesus said, ‘So you will not believe unless you see signs and portents!’ ‘Sir,’ answered the official come down before my child dies.’ ‘Go home,’ said Jesus, ‘your son will live.’ The man believed what Jesus had said and started on his way; and while he was still on the journey back his servant met him with the news that his boy was alive.” Thus, Jesus demonstrates the power of the word of God to create new things and new portents to old things. This is what our Sacraments represent in the mystery of our salvation in Christ Jesus. The Sacraments are the activities of God with the cooperation of human persons for their salvation.

Let us pray: O God, who renew the world through mysteries beyond all telling, grant we pray, that your Church may be guided by your eternal design and not be deprived of your help in this present age. 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. 

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