December 9: Self-Evident Hope

Jeremiah 16:1–17:27; Romans 1:18–2:11; Proverbs 16:1–11

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and unrighteousness of people, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what can be known about God is evident among them, for God made it clear to them” (Rom 1:18–19). A statement like this could easily be taken out of context if we leave off everything after “people.” But when we contextualize this message, we find hope instead of hopelessness.

Paul goes on to tell us that creation itself reveals God and His goodness to humanity, so there is no excuse for failing to understand God and the salvation He offers: “For from the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and deity, are discerned clearly, being understood in the things created, so that they are without excuse” (Rom 1:20).

We have all heard people who are concerned that salvation seems unfair: What about the people who won’t ever hear about Jesus? Yet Paul argues that everyone has an opportunity to witness Christ at work in creation itself. In Colossians he remarks that it’s in the “Son [Jesus] … whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, because all things in the heavens and on the earth were created by him, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things were created through him and for him” (Col 1:13–16).

All people have an opportunity to know God. No one has an excuse. God’s justice reigns in creation; it reigns in Christ; and it reigns in the lives of those who choose Christ. Christ is everywhere, in all things. The world is not condemned unfairly by a God of unreasonable wrath; instead, it’s ruled by a God of joy and empathy who is love.

What misperceptions do you have of God? How can you correct them and work in the lives of others to do the same? How can you spread the empathy God wants you to display?

John D. Barry

 Barry, J. D. – Kruyswijk, R., Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan (Bellingham, WA 2012).

December 9

The proper Marian devotion assures our faith of the simultaneous presence of indispensable reason and equally indispensable “reasons of the heart”, as Pascal would say. For the Church, man is neither reason alone nor feeling alone; he is the unity of both these dimensions. The head’s task is to think clearly, while the heart must be capable of warm feelings: Marian devotion thus assures our faith its full human dimension. To use the formulations of the Second Vatican Council in this regard: Mary is “figure”, “image”, and “model” for the Church. By gazing on her, the Church is prevented from conveying a one-sided male image that reduces her to an instrument of socio-political action programs. In Mary, in her person and her example, the Church finds her own countenance as mother. The reason is evident why certain theologies and ecclesiologies have no room for Mary anymore: they have reduced the Faith to something abstract. Such an abstractum has no use for a mother. Through her twofold vocation of being at the same time Virgin and Mother, Mary sheds a perpetual light on the Creator’s timeless intention as regards woman, our own time included, or rather, perhaps especially in our own time, in which the nature of femininity is clearly threatened. Through virginity and maternity the mystery that is woman obtains the highest destiny, and she cannot be forced out of it. Mary without hesitation proclaims the Magnificat, but she is also the one who brings stillness and hiddenness to fruition; she is the one who does not hesitate to stand under the Cross; she was present when the Church came into being. But she is also the one who, as the evangelist emphasizes, “kept and pondered in her heart” all the things she hears and experiences. As a person formed by courage and obedience, she was and ever is an example which every Christian—man no less than woman—may and should look up to.

From: Zur Lage des Glaubens, pp. 109ff.

 Ratzinger, J., Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year (ed. I. Grassl) (San Francisco 1992) 387-388.