Newton Stewart, Wigtown and Whithorn RC Churches

Catholic Churches in the Machars of Galloway

Catechism of the Catholic Church

(11th May to 6th July)

Another perspective on the Name of God given to us in the Old Testament is very beautiful and most consoling. It is revealed when Moses, in the book of Exodus, asks God to show him His glory.

God responds "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name 'the LORD' [YHWH].” Then the LORD passes before Moses and proclaims, "YHWH, YHWH, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness"; Moses then confesses that the LORD is a forgiving God (n. 210).

The divine name, "I Am" or "He Is", expresses God's faithfulness: despite the faithlessness of men's sin and the punishment it deserves, he keeps "steadfast love for thousands" By going so far as to give up his own Son for us, God reveals that he is "rich in mercy". By giving his life to free us from sin, Jesus reveals that he himself bears the divine name: "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will realize that "I AM"." (n.211).

Referring to God’s Name as “He Who Is” (“I Am Who Am”), the CCC notes that “God alone is” (n.213). What can this mean? At root, it means that God alone has not been created. You and I “are”, but we only “are” because we have been given existence. God, on the other hand, “is” because He is! “He is” - full stop!

Everything else you might add to the “I am” of God boils down to the basic truth that “He is.” Jesus uses the “I am” many times in the Gospels: “I am the Way, Truth and Life”, or “I am the Light”, or “I am the God Shepherd”, etc.. He even says something more outrageous to the ears of he pious Jews: “I tell you most solemnly, before Abraham ever was, I AM.” The Jews understood that, by saying this, he was claiming nothing less than to be God.

This truth about the Name of God may seem abstruse and irrelevant to our lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. The “I AM” of God is the foundation of our certainty that our God is eternal, that He is the only God, that He is the source and core of every being, including our own personal selves. Because he always was and is, so He always will be. In other words, He will always be faithful, be present, be attentive to us and to our yearnings for life and love. The “I AM” of God tells us that the forces of nothingness, destruction and death cannot prevail in the end.

Spiritually, to recall that “He IS” teaches us that “we too are” before “we do” anything. Sometimes people think that they are only worth anything if they are engaged in frantic activity. But the truth is rather that our most authentic value resides in the fact that “we are.” Not productivity, but existence is the measure of the dignity of the human being. That is why it is so important sometimes to stop everything and just be still and know and appreciate your “being” in quiet silence. This is but one step from knowing “He who is.” As a psalm puts it, “be still and you will know that I AM God.”

 

(8th June 2008)

We all desire to know the truth. When we say, “I want to know the truth”, we mean, “I want to know what is actually the case.” We don’t want to be deceived; we don’t want half-truths. The truth is “that which is”, not “that which is not”! Now, if God’s Name is “I Am Who Am”, and if He is so before anything else ever came to be, it means that God IS the Truth. The CCC in fact shows how, throughout the bible, God speaks of himself as being true. Indeed, in St. John’s Gospel, Jesus says quite explicitly, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” He also says, “whoever keeps my words will learn the truth and the truth will set them free.”

           When we speak of God as Truth, we don’t just mean that He teaches us the truth. We mean that in his very being he is true, much in the sense that a lover might declare to the beloved, “I will always be true to you.” God is infinitely true in this sense: he is always faithful. He is therefore always patient and long-suffering with us. But this does not mean that “it’s okay” if we are unfaithful, or if we justify our sins or deny that we have sinned. The Lord wants his patience and fidelity so to move us that we, too, become true, free from sin because free in the truth, i.e. free in Him.

           Truth is not the same as facts. Real truth is ultimately rooted in God. A lie is a fact; and it may be true that someone has lied. But the lie itself is not a truth! The Crucifixion of Jesus is a fact; a superficial interpretation of it will say that Jesus was a criminal and so a failure. But the truth of the Crucifixion is that it was the victory of eternal love over sin and death. Science tends to remain at the level of facts; but it cannot interpret the truth of those facts. The truth goes much deeper, so much so that science must at times be silent and contain itself lest it allow the facts to undermine the truth. The interpretation of reality that is worthy of mankind is not the scientific one, but the theological one – because God alone is Truth.

 

(15th June 2008)

So the statement that “God is Truth” means much more than that God speaks the truth. He speaks the truth in the sense that he communicates to us Who He Is. Another way of putting this is to use the word which Jesus himself uses: revelation. God reveals himself to us. By the creation of the world, God reveals himself, much as an artist reveals him/herself in their work. All things which exist in truth are manifestations of God. His stamp or hallmark can be detected in them. This is true especially of man and woman, who bear not only the hallmark of God, but are actually created in God’s own image and likeness. We ourselves are the most eloquent revelation of God in the created order.

           God also revealed himself, however, not just in space (creation), but also in time, in the history of the people of Israel, beginning with Abraham. God’s interventions were primarily to save a people from slavery and to give them true freedom in living in a covenant with Him.

           But it is above all in Jesus that God reveals himself. In Jesus, God himself takes on the form of is own image in the flesh. Jesus is Truth incarnate. The question is not, “What is truth?”, as Pilate famously asked, but “Who is Truth?” Pilate had the Truth standing before him.

 

(22nd June 2008)

After dealing with the statement that “God is Truth”, the CCC moves on to another beautiful way of understanding God, i.e. “God is love.” Indeed, the only reason why God revealed himself as Truth was and is because of his Love. Israel came to understand this in the course of its history. God tells them through Moses that He chooses them out of pure, unmerited and gratuitous love. This love proved itself time and again by forgiving Israel its sins of idolatry and infidelity (n.218).

In the Old Testament, God’s love for his people is compared to and stronger than: a father’s love for his son; a mother’s love for her child; a bridegroom’s love for his bride. That love will be victorious even over the most severe infidelities because of its supreme expression in God’s gift of his Only Son to the world: “God loved the world so much that He gave His Only Son” (n.219).

God’s love is everlasting. Indeed, GOD IS LOVE: this is His most intimate secret (n.220). Because God is love, because love is the meaning of the life of the Trinity, so it is the meaning of human life, created in the image and likeness of God. But we must be careful. The kind of love which is the meaning of our life is not just human love, however beautiful that may indeed be as a reflection of God’s love. Since we have come from the love of God, and as we are going to that love in eternity, so GOD’s love must be the mainstay and inspiration and motivation for all we are and do between conception and death. God’s love purifies and ennobles human love. How do we obtain such love? Through the Holy Spirit given to us: the Spirit is the power of Divine Love. We find the Spirit in prayer and in the sacraments and must build our life according to his inspirations.

 

(6th July 2008)

After outlining for us the rich and varied meanings of the One God (see previous weeks), the CCC lists some of the implications of faith in this One God.

           Why “implications”? Well, just having notions in our head about God, while good, is not enough. The question is: what are we going to do as a result of those notions? Faith is not a theory; it is a life, and a life must be lived, day by day, in our decisions and actions, both small and great. This life must go along with our faith, it must manifest our faith, otherwise our faith is useless, indeed it is dead.

To use the image of soul and body, just as a body is dead without a soul, so our life is dead without faith; equally, our faith is dead without being lived out in the body. This is the relationship between doctrine and life, doctrine and morality. A Christian’s choices must be taken on the basis of his or her faith. Conscience is a gift given by God so that we can judge how to put our faith into practice in a particular situation.

So, the implications of faith in God are that we live as God wants, i.e. we live like God. We will return to the list of implications given by the CCC next time.