Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Book of Genesis, chapter 1:1

I’m intrigued that we could be so casual about the gift of life. It is so wonderful, this gift of God, our Creator. How many of us accept it with outstretched hands like a birthday gift we don’t really want? But think of it. This is a profound mystery: that the infinitely complex fusing of brain tissue and cells could produce human thought. This is really quite overwhelming!

It strikes me as highly improbable that one could randomly throw musical notes down a flight of stairs and they would land in such fashion as to produce Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Perhaps if you threw them down a flight of stairs enough times they might so land but I find such a hypothesis far less probable than that there is an all knowing and all powerful God behind it all. Even a Big Bang requires a Big Banger.

The truth is, creation is an infinite mystery, utterly beyond our wildest imaginations. Isaiah the prophet was correct when he said, “His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts” Consider the fact that there are as many universes like our Milky Way Galaxy as there are single grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth! What does that say about the God who created it all? We can never fit that mystery into our head.

Truth is, there is a vast difference between a problem and a mystery. A problem always has an answer if you study it long enough. Weigh it, measure it, smell it, touch it, ponder it long enough and you will solve the problem. Put it in a box and label it with a name. But a mystery is quite different. You can study it for a lifetime and it will forever elude you. That is what a mystery does. It keeps saying; come this way but I will always be beyond your grasp. A mystery is always unfolding; always open to increased understanding, but it is never fully grasped by the human mind.

So, the scriptures speak of mysteries: the Holy Trinity; the Mass; the Faith; the Incarnation; and the Resurrection. These mysteries of God will lead us on for a lifetime until we are exposed to the final mystery; the Beatific Vision when everything will be made clear.

God loves you,

Father Mike Cassell