Do not forget the Mysteries of God

Do not forget the Mysteries of God

There are more mysteries with God than even the best theologians can imagine.  Each time we wake up the new day in itself is a mystery that we should be thankful for.  Each moment any one of us enters into the very mission we are sent on in itself tests our faith to complete the unknown project the Spirit of God has placed before us.  It is never our decision to ascertain the outcome but the quality that issues forth to another soul that may be saved because of our willingness to act with grace.  

 Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering.  God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil.  But in the most mysterious way God the Father has revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil.  Christ crucified is thus “the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” It is in Christ’s Resurrection and exaltation that the Father has shown forth “the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe.”  (CCC 272).

The term “to hallow” is to be understood here not primarily in its causative sense (only God hallows, makes holy), but above all in an evaluative sense: to recognize as holy, to treat in a holy way.  And so, in adoration, this invocation is sometimes understood as praise and thanksgiving.  But this petition is here taught to us by Jesus as an optative: a petition, a desire, and an expectation in which God and man are involved.  Beginning with this first petition to our Father, we are  immersed in the innermost mystery of his Godhead and the drama of the salvation of our humanity.  Asking the Father that his name be made holy draw us into his plan of loving kindness for the fullness of time, “according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ,” that we might “be holy and blameless before him in love.”  (CCC 2807).

Of all the mysteries that identify God the most crucial are the forgiveness of our sins and the open invitation for each soul to live with him in eternity.  As we might believe to learn all the hidden mysteries such as the Trinity, his existence without beginning, or the many untold beliefs we are expected to accept, without his mercy all the other hidden attributes become meaningless.

God presented all of us a picturesque outline that began with the Incarnation of Christ by placing himself within the womb of the Blessed Mother, Mary Most holy and then assuming humanity and becoming 100 % God and 100% man.  Thereupon this mystery we will follow the same suffering and Cross that he sets before us.  Without the Cross we shall not find mercy.  And without suffering no one will find the cross that waits for our walk to Calvary.

Ralph B. Hathaway