To See And Be Seen (Lenten post #4)

[izhilzha]

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

Someone pointed out to me recently that we tend to think and talk as if the big divide is between the spiritual and the physical - so we try to divide ourselves into the physical and the spiritual, and think that 'God is a spirit' and therefore that in being more spiritual (by which we mean less concerned with the physical) we are being more like God. But in fact the real difference between the creator and the created - there's as big a gulf (in terms of what they are) between God and the angels as there is between God and us. The fact that they're spiritual beings does not in and of itself make them closer to God. Angels are more like us than they are like God.

But we know God, primarily, in Christ, that is through God becoming a human being, and so we cannot know God in a purely spiritual, unbodied way - and this shouldn't be surprising. We can't actually unbody ourselves, we're not ghosts in a machine, our bodies as well as our souls are who we are. So it's fitting that God, in his love, reveals himself to us in a way that our bodies are part of. Which is why God gives himself to us in the sacraments, which need a physical element (which is more that just an outward sign).

[izhilzha]

But in fact the real difference between the creator and the created - there's as big a gulf (in terms of what they are) between God and the angels as there is between God and us.

What an excellent point! I agree entirely... although now I want to discuss the fact that we creatures (humans) then also have the benefit of God's Spirit indwelling us, making the creator/creature divide that much smaller.

we cannot know God in a purely spiritual, unbodied way

I really, really wish somebody had said this to me, in just this way, when I was a teenager desperately trying to figure out "how" to seek God. (Hmm. Maybe my next post should be about the recent experiences I have had sensing the physical presence of Christ when receiving the Eucharist. I'm sure my take on it would be "off" from my friends of all denominational stripes... *g*)

[tree_and_leaf]

the fact that we creatures (humans) then also have the benefit of God's Spirit indwelling us, making the creator/creature divide that much smaller.

Yes, that's true - but it's a secondary thing, it's a gift.

I really, really wish somebody had said this to me, in just this way, when I was a teenager desperately trying to figure out "how" to seek God. (Hmm. Maybe my next post should be about the recent experiences I have had sensing the physical presence of Christ when receiving the Eucharist. I'm sure my take on it would be "off" from my friends of all denominational stripes... *g*)

I wish someone had said it to me as a teenager, too (in fact, even after discovering the catholic tradition, it took a while for the penny to drop).

Experiences of the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist sound perfectly orthodox to me... but I am a mediaevalist.

[izhilzha]

the fact that we creatures (humans) then also have the benefit of God's Spirit indwelling us, making the creator/creature divide that much smaller.

Yes, that's true - but it's a secondary thing, it's a gift.

Sure. But it's also more than we are ever told the angels get--they long to look into it, even! It's oddly as if we were some hybrid: creatures, indeed and still, and yet superbly intimate with the Creator, on a level that we don't even have a real name for.

So cool.

Experiences of the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist sound perfectly orthodox to me... but I am a mediaevalist.

I don't mean in the elements themselves, but simply during the Mass. And weirdly, not every Mass, but the three Latin Masses I've been to in the past couple of months. No rational idea why it should be those particular ones. :)