Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072412.cfm

A small fish in a shallow creek
in bright sunshine

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?

Thirty years ago my spiritual director insisted that our God is loving and kind. I wanted to believe her, but I didn’t.

One’s image of God is shaped largely by life experience. I may hear of more desirable ways of imagining God; I may see lovely artistic renditions of God; and I may wish to believe in such a God: but it’s hard to set aside one’s deepest convictions. Because God is the wellspring of all reality, I can only conclude that the reality I know expresses the truth about God. And that conviction about God might not conform to Church doctrine or any other teaching.

Encountering a generous and gentle spiritual director, I became convinced that the lord whom I worshipped was not the true God. At that time, I also joined a twelve step group and there I learned of their kinder, more forgiving God. When I “made a decision to turn (my life) and will over to the care of God as we understand him” it was their God I chose.

But that decision didn’t immediately reverse a first impression of 30+ years. Conversion doesn’t come simply, nor does healing. (Of three kinds of healing – physical, mental and spiritual – it seems the physical comes quickly, the mental comes eventually, and the spiritual takes longest.)

This is why God must reveal himself to us. We cannot know God without divine intervention, which we call Revelation or Salvation History.

For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!

Saint Francis of Assisi grew up in a violent home and a warlike city. Despite his small stature and frail health the young man was ready and eager to march off to war. But a series of revelations turned him around. First he realized how little he knew of God, and then he encountered the truth of God in a colony of lepers. Finally he went to work, spending long arduous hours in desperate contemplation seeking a deep conversion. A companion said he would disappear into the mouth of a shallow cave for prayer, and emerge hours later, filthy and sweaty as if he had been mining gold.

Blessed as few others, this spiritual genius learned to see God’s goodness everywhere. Living out of doors, he was exposed to pleasant spring days, torrid summer heat, glorious autumn vistas and fierce winter storms; all revealed God’s majestic gentleness. When his body shivered with cold his heart burned with love; when gnats and chiggers tormented his body, contemplation of Jesus’ wounds soothed his soul. Neither the contempt of men nor the horrors of war could distract him from the vision of God’s goodness. His sight was clear. “You are good, all good, supreme good!” he prayed and taught others to pray.

Three little fishies in the water, choo

I pray for a healing like that of Saint Francis. I want to know the God…

Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt.