St Paul by Pompeo Batoni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>On Saturday I attended the first South Carolina Catholic Men\u2019s Conference. At the book table a young guy said to me, \u201cFather, I\u2019m a convert from Baptist too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat! Tell me how that happened!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my mother. She messed me up at the age of seven.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this with a smile on his face. \u201cSee we were in the Baptist church for communion and they were passing those trays around with little bits of cracker on them\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know. That\u2019s what they did in my church when I was growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, when they passed it to my mom she passed it beyond me and whispered in my ear, \u2018That\u2019s Jesus.'\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWow. That\u2019s pretty high sacramental theology for a Baptist!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo then I grew up and got engaged to a girl who was Catholic, and when we went to Mass the first time she said to me, \u2018That\u2019s Jesus.\u2019 and I remembered what my mom said and so I became Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Huh. See? God moves in a mysterious way. All the apologetical arguments done and dusted with a few comments by people who mattered to that guy.<\/p>\n
I was captivated by the phrase in Sunday\u2019s second reading from St Paul, \u201cWe are regarded as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.\u201d<\/p>\n
That phrase \u201cstewards of the mysteries of God\u201d floored me. St Paul\u2019s use of the term \u201cmysteries\u201d resonates so powerfully with the Catholic understanding.<\/p>\n
This is one of the first steps of faith\u2013to trace in your life and in the ways of the world the mysterious way God works. He does not work according to our plans and our sensible ways of organizing everything. He is always busy under the radar and behind the scenes doing his work. Faith is being able to see what is going on and how he works in his strange and mysterious way.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I love it that you can see his mysterious working in the faith story of that guy at the conference, then in Ephesians he uses \u201cmystery\u201d again saying that \u201cthe mystery of God which was hidden from the beginning of the world is now revealed through the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ is the mystery of God revealed to the church. He\u2019s referring to the mystery of the incarnation. But look again. He says this mystery is revealed \u201cthrough the church.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tell that to your Protestant friends who think the church is un necessary. For that matter tell that to your lapsed Catholic friends who think the church is unnecessary. \u201cAll that really matters is how much you love Jesus. The churches are just human institutions\u2026\u201d Have you heard that before?<\/p>\n
St Paul says the mystery of God incarnate in the world is revealed. \u201cThrough the church.\u201d How so? Here comes the mystery word again for we call the sacraments the \u201cHoly Mysteries\u201d and so do the Eastern Orthodox who refer to them as the \u201cDivine Mysteries\u201d. And so we celebrate the sacred mysteries of the sacraments and you can\u2019t do that without the church.<\/p>\n
God moves in a mysterious way. Who would have guessed it? You trace his mysterious workings in the world, then you see that in the midst of the great Roman Empire with its emperors and armies and wealth and power he comes sneaking into the world through the \u2018yes\u2019 of a peasant girl to be born in a shepherd\u2019s village in the back of beyond.<\/p>\n
Then he deems to make this mystery known through a rag tag band of disciples and one man who was too smart for his own good and was blinded on the road to Damascus so that he might learn to see, and they reveal to us that this same mystery is known to us through the mystery of the church where we participate in the sacred mysteries.<\/p>\n
So what is a \u201cmystery\u201d? It is something that can be experienced even if it cannot be explained.<\/p>\n
Like Love. Like Beauty. Like Goodness. Like Truth.<\/p>\n
Like God.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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<\/a>