Susan's Musings: Messengers of the Mystery

In an informational age like our own, it is embarrassing to admit that certain questions defy explanation.  The circumstances surrounding them remain a mystery to the best minds. There are barriers beyond which reason cannot go.  Yet, even though we do not see, we still believe. 

In faith, we confirm the ultimate goodness of God, whose ways remain a mystery to us: “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?  But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).

Since God’s ways will never yield fully to our analysis, how is it possible to be messengers of the mystery?

On many occasions, confronted by questions concerning the suffering of the innocent or the suddenness of natural disasters, we show affectionate empathy; we try to feel into what the other is feeling, but answers are not forthcoming.

We are at the threshold of what St. John of Cross (1542-1591) names “naked faith.” It alone enables us to pass through the midnight moments of life when no explanation for what is happening makes any sense at all.  That is when we stand under God while knowing that we do not understand.

In an era when our faith is under attack by forces from without like moral relativism and forces from within like acting one way in public and another in private, we need messengers of the mystery, who witness to faith in Christ, in the Church, in the sacramental life, in the sacrifice of the Cross, and in the hope of the resurrection. Belief in the Paschal Mystery, in the dying and rising of Jesus, is the bedrock to which we cling in the darkest hour.

St. Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) loved the dying souls she bathed and dressed because for her they were Jesus. She did not try to penetrate the reason why God had allowed them to plunge into this state of filth and despisal. That was a mystery to everyone.  Her duty was to care for them as the Lord asked her to do. That was the secret of her missionary ministry, not the thought of worldly success but the desire to enter into the unknown depths of loving union with God, no matter what she did.

In our day, when everyone seems to have or to want an answer to every question, from the expanding universe to the moment of conception, it is sobering to admit that there is more that we do not know than we know. Answers to even the most basic questions concerning life and death may elude us, but in faith we can befriend this mystery. As the apostle Paul says:

                        "Listen, I will tell you a mystery!  We will not all die, but we

                        will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,

                        at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead

                        will be raised imperishable and we will be changed." - 1 Cor. 15:51-52

 To be messengers of such a mystery is to believe in the word of God; to hope in what is unseen; and to love not occasionally but as unconditionally as possible.

            The greatest mystery we can imagine is:

                        “…[that] by his great mercy [Christ] has given us a new birth into a

                        living hope through the resurrection…from the dead, and into an

                        inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in

                        heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through

                        faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time…although

                        you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not

                        see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable

                        and glorious joy.  For you are receiving the outcome of your faith,

                        the salvation of your souls." - 1 Pet 1:3-9

  The revelation of our redemption helps us to navigate the choppy seas and treacherous cliffs we often have to face. Christ asks us to follow directions that at first sight do not correspond to the ones we would choose, but, as messengers of the mystery, we stay the course. We do not allow ourselves to get bogged down in a morass of what is “in” at the moment that only distracts us from what is lasting and truly of the Lord.

Defining ourselves in terms of popularity and prestige, fulfilling secular roles to win the approval of others, allowing ourselves to be swept along by the tide of the media, beguiled by the easy path of cheap conformity to worldly standards are all ways of betraying the Christian commitment that ought to permeate and transform whatever we do.

When we find ourselves conforming to patterns of living alien to our Christian calling, we can rename ourselves as “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor 5:20), entrusted by him to bring the “message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19) to a world wounded in soul and body because of sin and waiting to receive the healing balm of forgiveness.