Denver Catholic

19 DENVER CATHOLIC | AUGUST 10-23, 2019 T here is, to be sure, a stress within the Biblical tradition that God is radically other: "Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior." (Isaiah 45:15) and "No one shall see [God] and live" (Exodus 33:20). This speaks to the fact that the one who creates the entire universe from nothing cannot be, himself, an item within the uni- verse, one being alongside of others. But at the same time, the Scriptures also attest to God's omnipresence: "Your Wisdom reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and she orders all things well" (Wisdom 8:1) and "Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I fl ee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; . . . If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast" (Psalm 139:7-12). This speaks to the fact that God sus- tains the universe in existence from moment to moment, the way a singer sustains a song. What is perhaps the defi ning fea- ture of the spirituality associated with St. Ignatius of Loyola — "fi nding God in all things" — fl ows from this second great biblical emphasis. Despite his transcendence, God should not be thought of as distant in any conven- tional sense of the term, certainly not in the Deist manner. Rather, as Thomas Aquinas taught, God is in all things, "by essence, presence, and power." And mind you, since God is endowed with intellect, will, and free- dom, he is never dumbly present, but always personally and intentionally present, oˆ ering something of himself to us. Therefore, the search for God can commence right here, right now, with whatever is at hand. One of the questions in the old Baltimore Catechism was "where is God?" The correct answer was "every- where." Once that truth sinks in, our lives irrevocably change, for now every person, every event, every sorrow, every encounter becomes an oppor- tunity for communion with God. The seventeenth century Jesuit spiritual master, Jean-Pierre de Caussade, expressed the same idea when he said that everything that happens to us is, directly or indirectly, the will of God. Once again, it is impossible to accept the truth of that statement and remain the same person you were before. This always already graced quality of "all things" functions as the starting-point for Ignatius's spirituality. Ignatius has been very much on my mind, for I am in Europe fi lming a documentary on his life and teachings for my—Pivotal Playersseries. On the long fl ight from Los Angeles to Rome, I had occasion to enact the principle I have just been describing. Ever since I was kid, I have loved maps and so when I fi nd myself on a lengthy plane voyage, I spend a good deal of time with the fl ight map, which tracks the location of the plane, vis-à-vis land- marks on the ground. I had read and watched some videos for the fi rst part of the fl ight and then I had slept most of the time we were over the Atlantic, but when I woke, I began studying the map with great interest. We were passing just north of Ireland, and I could clearly see the indications for Dublin, where my mother's father was born, and for Waterford, where my father's grandfather was born. I com- menced to think about these men, neither of whom I ever met, who bore the Catholic faith that eventually came to my mother and father and fi nally to me, as a sheer grace. As the plane continued its jour- ney across the English Channel, northern France came into view on the map, and I saw the great name "Paris." Suddenly, a slew of mem- ories fl ooded my mind: my simple room at the Redemptorist House on the Boulevard Montparnasse, Notre Dame, where I used to give tours to English-speaking visitors; the Institut Catholique where I did my doctoral studies; all of my Parisian friends, teachers, and colleagues who accom- panied me across those three years; the beauty of Paris on a rainy day. And all of it, I knew, was a grace, sheer gift. Next, I saw that we were approach- ing the Alps and so I opened the window screen and looked down on the snow-capped mountains that were gleaming in the sun. How could I not appreciate this view, which untold generations of human beings wouldn't have even imagined possi- ble, as a splendid gift? In a word, the simple study of a fl ight map toward the end of a tedious journey became a rather marvelous occasion of grace. I wonder whether we would fi nd this sort of experience less anomalous if we mused on the fact that God positively—wants—to share his life with us,—wants—to communicate with us. Perhaps the problem is that we stubbornly think of God in the Deist manner and relegate him to a place of irrelevant transcendence. Then the spiritual burden is on us, to fi nd some way to climb the holy mountain or suœ ciently to impress a demanding moral overlord. What if we accepted the deeply Biblical notion that God is always already busily and passion- ately searching for us, always already endeavoring to fi nd ways to grace us with his love? What if we blithely accepted the truth that God can be found, as Ignatius taught, in all things? because it is transformative, as "we are truly remade" and enter into God's own life (81). In Literature: What Every Cath- olic Should Know, Pearce guides us through the Church's deep literary tradition. He begins by telling us that "there is a very good reason for every Catholic to know the great works of literature — and that is because the great works of literature help us to know ourselves ... In the great works of literature we discover a deep under- standing of man's being and purpose. We discover that man is a homo viator, a pilgrim or wayfarer who journeys through mortal life with eternal life always in mind" (1). Pearce points us fi rst to the wayfarer Odysseus, who with his fellow Greeks and Romans, proved fertile ground for the devel- opment of the Christian imagination, infused with the light of the Gospel. Dante, whom Pearce rightly calls "supreme" and "indispensable," and his Divine Comedy "possibly the greatest poem ever written," provides the best example of this blossoming of the Christian mind from both the Gospel and ancient world (37; 39). From Dante, Pearce guides us through Chaucer, who shows us "the same struggle between holiness and hedonism, sanctity and sin, and vice and virtue" we see today (46); cor- rects the typical reading of Thomas More's Utopia; shows us how Shake- speare stands as a "colossus who straddles the centuries" and "his plays, and the truth and morality con- tained within them, transcend time" (59); and how Cervantes' Don Quix- ote, the world's fi rst novel, strikes us with compassion and humor. There are too many modern authors to sum- marize them all, but some highlights include Austen, Manzoni, whose work, The Betrothed, earns Pearce's commendation as the greatest novel, Dostoyevsky, Chesterton, Undset with her masterful trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, Graham Greene, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Together, these two books on What Every Catholic Should Know can help us to grow in literacy, exploring a crucial and controversial dimension of our faith, our salvation, as well as providing a map of the major achieve- ments of Christian letters. Written in an accessible and engaging style, they open up a broader horizon of theology and culture, one that is very much needed. Finding God in all things BISHOP ROBERT BARRON Guest Column Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles. He is the creator of the award winning documentary series "Catholicism."

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