In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
My dearly beloved in Our Lord,
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways!”
With these words taken from the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans, Holy Church directs our mind towards the great reality of God.
The human mind is capable of knowing the very basic truths about God: His existence and His attributes such as immensity, His being all-powerful, and His providence. But only few individuals come to this knowledge for our mind is too deeply affected by profound darkness, the consequence of original sin. In other words, we are incredibly stupid in the original sense of this term. We are ignorant even of such things as should be plain to us.
“Modern” and “enlightened” man has reached the summits of ignorance, and of stupidity. It has been the sad prerogative of the most recent times that for example atheism – the denial of the existence of God – has been erected as a model of social life. It has even become quite universal by now! Materialist atheism – communism – has set the beginning; the “western” system based on the absolute “values” of human dignity and human freedom has followed suit by separating the state from the Church; the great majority of nominal Catholics has by fondly accepted these ideas. An unbelievable number of Catholics, led by wolves in sheep’s clothing, believe that they adore the same God with other “monotheistic religions”, ignoring and blaspheming the very mystery of the Most holy Trinity.
Just before this universal demise the Vatican Council (1869-1870) had made clear quite a few of the underlying principles. Among other things it proclaimed that, even though the fundamental truths about God can be known by the natural power of the intellect, it was most fitting that these very truths be revealed by God. For in this way they can be known more easily, by all, and without any danger of being mixed up with manifold errors.
Since “modern” man has decided to doubt everything, systematically, he must end up in the greatest confusion of mind. The confusion and degradation of the moral life which we witness today, is but the necessary consequence of this confusion of the intellect. Whoever wants to escape from sinking down into the mire of moral degradation, must necessarily make a great and constant effort to get his ideas and principles right, and to keep them that way.
God’s wisdom and knowledge are unlimited. His ways are unsearchable, i.e. they cannot be understood by our small and limited human reason in their very depths. His judgments are incomprehensible, i.e. we cannot fully see or understand how God’s plans work. We know through Faith that nothing can escape God’s power and will. But on a day-to-day basis we may find it incredibly difficult to admit this truth. In fact, everything that comes our way, anything that crosses our path, is under the total control of the best of Fathers. It is an effect of His providence which has but one ultimate goal: God’s greater glory.
As I tried to hint at the beginning, we must be aware of the fact that our mind is deeply darkened by the foremost consequence of original sin: ignorance in our intellect which God has given us to know the truth. Add to this the wound with which the human will power is left since original sin, malice, and you have the main ingredients of the unsavory staple food of our daily existence! Our condition is that of reasonable creatures who are profoundly ignorant and prone towards evil as a consequence of sin. Only God’s grace, which Jesus-Christ has obtained for us by his Passion and Death on the Cross, can save us from succumbing to the fatal consequences of our state!
“Modern” man pretends that he is naturally good; and that there is no supernatural life. By this he cuts himself from the “true reality”. The natural order is upset because an important element, malice and sin, is cut out from the picture. The supernatural order is becoming sterile and ineffective because it must be superposed to the natural order: gratia supponit naturam – grace pre-supposes nature.
An immediate but often neglected effect of this wrong starting point is that “modern” man has a “paternity problem”. If it is true that God is “our Father in Heaven” - and it is certainly true! - then by cutting himself off from God, man cuts himself from his true Father.
The earthly father contributes to the coming about of a new human being by pro-creation. The heavenly Father immediately creates the soul without which there is no human being!
As human fatherhood creates a lasting relationship between the father and his child, so the divine fatherhood – God creating the human soul – creates a lasting relationship between the human being and his Creator. Either relationship – natural or supernatural – generates automatically certain duties and rights between a father and his child.
In the natural order, a father rejecting his child, or a child breaking with his father, deeply affects the human being. A human “paternity problem” is difficult and makes life difficult. This is a sad, but daily experience nowadays…
In the supernatural order the “paternity problem” mostly goes unrecognized, although its effects are even more disturbing and nefarious.
We witness this as members of the Catholic Church which is deprived of its human authority, the Pope and the jurisdictional Bishops. Authority has a lot to do with paternity. This sad state of affairs – which we cannot repair, but which only God can bring back to normal – has the most far-reaching consequences, as we can see. Daily we suffer from this lack of paternal direction, teaching etc. and our souls mourn and wait while we see so many souls falling into the traps of their disorderly ego, of the world and of the devil…
We are subject to the manifold sequels of the immediate or mediate rejection of God’s fatherly authority: The thrones of the Christian emperor, kings and princes have been overthrown. Christian nations have beheaded their king and father, some physically, all of them morally speaking. Parricide is one of the most horrible crimes. Christian nations doing away with their leaders do not go unpunished – obviously. They are left to their own devices, or they are annihilated.
As we recognize the problem of lacking paternity or authority, there may be little we can do about it on the natural or human level.
But on the spiritual and the supernatural level the solution is never far: For God does not die; and He does not give up those who truly are, and want to be His children.
St Francis of Assisi after his conversion got into trouble with his father who wanted him to succeed him in directing his business. So he ended up giving back everything material he had received from his father, under the regard of his bishop, even the very clothes which he was wearing. Then he said: Henceforth I shall speak more truly: Our Father, who art in Heaven...
Even if we are left without human leadership – and in many regards that is our situation – we can always look up to our Father in Heaven who cannot and will not give us up. Our Lord has reminded us lately – on the feasts of his Ascension and of Pentecost – that he is our advocate with the Father. Through him, and through him alone we have access to the paternal heart of the heavenly Father. Let us glorify Him through our Faith and our good works, under the caring eyes of Our Lady and all the Saints.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
P. Arnold Trauner (paterarnold@hotmail.com), njemački i engleski
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