God has put Eternity into Man's mind::: Friday of the 25th Week in Ordinary Time

25th September, 2020

Year A

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Psalm 144:1a and 2abc.3-4 (R. 1a)

Luke 9:18-22

God has put Eternity into Man's Mind 

Can God's resting place be with the things he created (cf. Isaiah 66:1-2), yes, so far as you are God's temple and his Spirit is living in you (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16), God's resting place is in you.

Today's first reading reminds me of my academic paper I titled " Causation: A Second Look at God's Relationship to Time" where I attested base on philosophers from ancient to contemporary understanding of God that, since God is eternal then ETERNITY is God.

The understanding of God, who is he who is (cf. Exodus 3:14), implies that what ever God is, is what he is. For instance if we say God is omnipotent, it means Ominipotencyis God or if you say God is Love, it means Love is God.

I also remember using logical or mathematical understanding of asymmetry and Thomas Aquinas understanding of Hypostatic Union showed how is possible for ETERNITY to become Time and how base on Augustine's philosophy of Interiority ETERNITY has always been in Time.

To water down metaphysical or philosophical and theological jargons, let me give a practical understanding of what we mean when we say something is eternal or out of time. 

 

For instance if I am at two or three places at the same time, let's say at exactly 3:00pm I at my room, at the market and the beach, it means I am not limited by time and space and hence I am "out of Time". To be limited  by time and space therefore is when at 3:00 pm I will be in my room and by 3:10 pm I will be at the beach and as time moves into the future I move with it. Thus since God is out of time, and he alone is Omnipresent, He is ETERNITY. 

Qoheleth says the reason why God has given us the awareness of time by putting ETERNITY into our minds is so that we can grasp neither the beginning nor the end of what he does. This speaks true of God, and show us that God is not just a Mystery, but Mystery is God. This is what baffled St. Augustine in his confession. 

The Confessions of St. Augustine

BOOK 1

 [We pray to God]

"I would not be, my God, at all, without you first being in me. Or rather, would I be without first being in you, from whom all things are and for whom we exist?"

[God fills all]

"Could we really say that since all things together cannot contain the whole, therefore each of them contains just a part of you? Would this part be the same in all things, or would the part filling one thing be different from all others depending on size? Were it so, some parts of you would be great, others small.  Isn't it true that wherever you are, you are there whole, and that nothing can contain you whole?

God is Omnipresent yet deeply hidden, and in Jesus Christ, while he became physically to us, he continued to be the Mystery that he is. Today, as in the gospel Jesus asks his disciples who they say he is, let's meditate on who Jesus Christ is to us.

Psalm 8:4-6

 "What are human beings that you spare a thought for them, or the child of Adam that you care for him? Yet you have made him little less than a god, you have crowned him with glory and beauty, made him lord of the works of your hands, put all things under his feet,"

Peter's answer was that he is the Christ of God. Through Peter, his disciples recognize explicitly that Jesus is the Christ or Messiah.  In fact today's gospel reading follows the miracle of the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish for the crowd of which twelve baskets of scraps were left. The idea of Messianic Banquet is strong and the parallel text in Matthew 14:13-21 makes it clearer. 

Look at the video below for more information. 

In the Gospel today we see God's plan in Jesus Christ, just as there is time for every thing and God has given us the awareness of time, we must plan our lives. If God did not have a plan for you, he will not have created you. Just as God filling the  heaven and earth created them, God filling you, created you. 

Jesus is Lord, He is the Son of God, He is God possessing also fully human nature. ETERNITY is God. Through Jesus Christ, ETERNITY fills Time and we united with God. Remember that God has a plan for you and that God may change his action but not his plan. 

By Sylvester Amakye-Quayson