Fiction and Faith

Understanding why God’s ways are above our ways

09/24/2023

Is 55:6-9 Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Little Danny rushed home from Sunday school, grabbed his daddy by the leg and yelled, “That story of Moses and all those people crossing the Red Sea was great!” His father looked down at him, smiled, and asked Danny to tell him all about it. Danny said excitedly: “Well, Moses was a big strong man and he beat up Pharaoh. Then while Pharaoh was down, Moses got all the people together and they ran towards the Red Sea.

The Egyptian army was getting closer and closer. So Moses got on his walkie-talkie and told the Israeli Air Force to fly over and bomb the Egyptians. While that was happening, the Israeli Navy built a pontoon bridge so the people could cross over. Once Moses and the people were safely on the other side, the Israeli Army fired artillery and blew up the bridge while the Egyptians were trying to cross, and the Egyptians were all drowned in the sea.”

His daddy was surprised and asked, “Now, is that the way your teacher taught you the story?” Danny admitted, “Well, no, not exactly. But you would never believe the story she did tell us!” In other words, truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes it takes a little natural fiction to fully grasp the supernatural truth of our faith.

In the first reading today, God speaks through the prophet Isaiah, saying, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” That is, just like little Danny had to bring Moses’ miraculous crossing of the Red Sea down to his dad’s level of comprehension – as a military victory – so God has to be brought down to us and born as a Baby in Bethlehem. A little natural fiction helps us grasp supernatural faith: he looks like a Baby but he's really the God-Man.

This weekend we celebrate Catechetical Sunday, and we will recognize and honor our catechists. And what do catechists do? They do exactly what Danny did with his dad: bring God’s ways down from heaven to earth so we can begin to understand them. I am so grateful to all our catechists and the vital ministry they perform. Fr. Bala and I could not be effective pastors without them. At the end of this homily, I’ll call them up to be blessed.

My friends, did you know that the seven sacraments also serve a catechetical function? What do I mean? Well, each sacrament brings God’s heavenly ways down to earth and adapts and adjusts them to our human level of comprehension. For example, in Baptism we see a baby having water poured on its head and crying at the top of its lungs. We see and understand that.

But what really happens for the eyes of faith is that little baby becomes a child of God. St. Francis of Assisi said that if we could see the soul of a newly baptized infant we would be sorely tempted to bow down and worship it. Why? It bears a striking resemblance to its oldest Brother, Jesus Christ. The natural fiction of being washed by water and crying helps us catch the supernatural truth of faith: being born again as a child of God.

Or, take the Eucharist and the Mass. To the eyes of faith that simple bread and wine on the altar are truly transformed by the words of a priest into Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, stands on the altar here at I.C. no less present as he is seated on his glorious throne in heaven.

But God shields us from looking directly at his glory because it would be a million times more dangerous than looking directly into the sun. As Jack Nicholson said to Tom Cruise in the movie, “A Few Good Men,” “You can’t handle the truth.” We need the natural fiction of bread and wine to see how in Communion Jesus wants to stand on the altar of our hearts even more than on the altar at I.C. or in heaven.

Or, just consider the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Most of us have a minimal understanding of marriage, or as C. S. Lewis once put it, we think of marriage as little more than “four bare legs in a bed.” But if you asked St. Paul about marriage, he would reply that every husband is an icon of Christ, and every wife is an image of the Church, the Bride of Christ.

That is why we don’t believe in divorce and why annulments are so hard to get. Why is the bar for marriage so high? Well, because the love of human spouses should reflect the love between the Church and Jesus, who died for us. No, not just died, but was crucified for us. And not just crucified for us, but crucified by us! Can you see how God’s ways are sky high above our ways? We need the natural fiction of human love to scratch the surface of our supernatural faith in divine love.

Folks, have you ever wondered by God uses simple, unassuming sacraments – water, wine, bread, oil, male, female – rather than little shock-and-awe like the Israeli Army – to teach us about himself? I am not really sure either. But let me suggest two answers, from two men a lot smarter than me. First, listen to Etienne Gilson:

“Supernatural truth reaches us, so to speak, like the water of a river which passes over a series of waterfalls, from God, who is its source, to the angels who receive it first according to the order of the angelic hierarchy; then from angels to men, reaching first the apostles and prophets, then spreading out into the multitude of those who receive it by faith” (The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 12-13). That is, it is impossible to climb up a waterfall and experience God directly, so we must settle for the sacraments to experience him today.

But C. S. Lewis said one day we will climb that waterfall. He wrote: “What would it be to taste at the fountainhead that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy” (The Weight of Glory). In the meantime, tomorrow is a Monday morning and we have to get back to work. So for now, we still need catechists and sacraments to help us experience God.

Praised be Jesus Christ!