The Mystery of God

St. Paul says, “Brethren, when I came to you, I didn’t come with earthly wisdom, but I came to proclaim,” what?  What does he say?  “I came to proclaim… he says, “The mystery of God,” the mystery of God, it is the gospel, but what the words He uses is the mystery of God.  The mystery of God, I came to proclaim the mystery of God.  There’s a lot of people who say, I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.  Because for a lot of people today, organized religion seems very corrupt, hypocritical, just human, and a lot of people have rejected it.  Because it seems like often that you might be using the organized religion as using spiritual things for human goals.  And there’s truth to that, that’s always been a danger. For organized religion knows a danger in the pagan religions, but not just in the pagan religion, we know that when Jesus came His biggest obstacle, His worst enemies, were the religious leaders, scribes and Pharisees, Sadducees.  And when there’s that moment of violence, when Jesus chases the money changers from the temple, those who are using the temple as a business, and it’s a danger also for the Church, in the first centuries, the Church was, was very persecuted, so it took a lot of a lot of dedication, because many were martyrs.  But then, when the Emperor Constantine became a Christian, that changed.  Suddenly became politically correct, to become a Christian.  So a lot of people entered the Church for the wrong reason.  And that’s always a danger when a religion becomes humanly successful and big.  There’s always a danger of corruption. And we’ve had terrible scandals.  We know in the Church, which is a sign that there’s always this battle.  I remember when I was a teenager, when I became interested in wanting to draw closer to God, I remember feeling so disappointed when I go to the parishes in my, in my town, because it felt so human.  There was so little, the sense of God, so little, the sense of the mystery of God, because the deepest hunger in the human person, that the deepest hunger of our soul is a hunger for God, for God in His infinite mystery.  He was the only one who can fulfill the infinite desire in our hearts, and the God who can, who can embrace us in the deepest intimacy that the human heart waits for.  And so where can we find this mystery of God?  I think are some movies when they want to show somebody really spiritual on a spiritual quest, they go to a Buddhist monastery on a high mountain in Tibet.  And many people are seeking a spiritual as if they are seeking it in oriental techniques of meditation.  But we have to be careful, because not everything spiritual is some good spirits, there’s also bad spirits, who are very subtle.  St. John says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know, the Spirit of God.”  How?  What’s it gonna say? How do we know the spirit, whether spirit is of God? It gives a very simple, clear criteria. “Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist.”  So Jesus Christ is the criteria to know if something is of spirit is of God or not.  And that’s why St. Paul says in the same passage, he says, “and I resolved to know nothing while I was among you, except Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ, crucified.”  Where do we find the wisdom of God?  Where do we find the mystery of God?  The true mystery, not false mysteries, the true mystery of God, but God who has come down to earth, so that we can know Him, the God who has given Himself for our salvation is in Jesus Christ, the only way, the truth and the life.  And so Jesus established a Church.  He didn’t just come to bless us individually, He did establish a Church.  And the Church has its part which is divine, and also has the part which is human.  And the human part can be more or less faithful to Him, depending on the actions of each one of us.  And so the Church is always in need of renewal.  We’ve had these terrible, terrible scandals that are sign that there can be terrible, terrible, diabolical corruption, which can infect the Church.  And so the Church has always in need of renewal and purification here on this earth.  Because so many people are looking for something divine, but they don’t sense that they can find it in the Catholic Church, and that’s a tragedy.  Because the Catholic Church has the greatest mystical tradition, the greatest contemplative tradition of no other religion can compare.  But many people don’t find that in their experience of the Church.  And so our parishes should be places where people and especially in the Mass can discover the mystery of God, and the spirit of reverence and adoration, of silence, sacred silence, which is a sign of the presence of the sacred mysteries, of the mystery of God.  And so how can we poor sinners, poor, weak sinners, how can we come into the presence of the mystery of God?  St. Paul says, it’s by the Holy Spirit, not by our own abilities, but by the grace of the Holy Spirit, which was given to us in Baptism. And so today, with our Blessed Mother, we can ask her to help us, be open to the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. There’s Holy Spirit who leads us to Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ, to the Father, to the very mystery of God. And so in this Mass, let us prepare to come into the presence of the mystery of God.