conclusion that we are meant to adopt the mind of God. In
fact, not
only his mind, but also his heart and his whole life, all
of which he
makes available here and now, and forever, through Christ
in the Holy
Spirit.
This is made
possible within the life of the Church which
Christ established, endowing it with enough power and
structure, both
visible and invisible, to perpetuate his presence in the
world till
the end of time and to keep us as his people, as his
family,
nourishing and sustaining us and leading us to our
ultimate perfection
in him.
We are made to
adopt God’s mind because we are his image
and likeness. And our mind itself, the way it is, needs
to adopt
something, to engage in some object. It cannot be by
itself alone
without an object. It can grow and develop only when it
has something
or someone that puts it into action.
Even in its
most idle and empty mode, it still needs to
adopt something. If not adopting something else, then it
adopts its
own self, which is actually a dangerous, self-poisoning
condition to
be in, since it is in that way that one would imprison
himself in his
own world, detached from the world outside.
And since God
is the Creator of the universe, the very
foundation of reality, then he should be the first and
ultimate aim
and object of all our knowing and loving, regardless of
how mysterious
he may be to us.
We should not
be contented with engaging our mind with
merely passing material and temporal things, with things
that we can
see and touch, nor even with highly sophisticated
sciences, arts and
technologies, nor even with intricate and highbrow
philosophies and
ideologies.
The fullness of
our mind’s potentials happens when we
adopt God’s mind. That’s when we would have a share of
God’s wisdom,
knowledge, power, love, mercy, justice, etc. That’s when
we prepare
ourselves for that final state of life when God would be
everything to
us, when he would “all in all.”
The mystery
involved in this relationship can be accessed
and lived if we would only have faith and trust in the
truth that we
are meant to have God’s mind. Obviously, to have faith
and trust in
this truth requires humility which Christ encouraged us
to cultivate.
This truth should not anymore sound strange to us.
Having faith
and trust in the mystery involved in adopting
God’s mind and sharing our life with his allows us to be
taken up by a
far superior power, the power of God himself, our creator
and father,
ever wise, loving and merciful, who will show us a far
richer reality
than what our reason and feelings, unguided by faith,
would show us.
Let’s never
forget that God never abandons even if we have
been unfaithful and even hostile to him. He will do
everything to
bring us to him, but doing it always with due respect to
our freedom.
He does not impose himself on us.
On the part of
God, everything is already provided for so
that we can adopt his mind. Through Christ in the Holy
Spirit, he has
left us with his living word, his sacraments, his Church,
and the
different charisms that are meant to lead us to him,
given our
different situations, cultures, tastes and preferences.
It now depends
on us on how we correspond to these gifts
of God. Are we aware of them? Are we making use of them?
It’s good to
ask ourselves if we are meditating on the
word of God as found in the Bible, especially in the
psalms and in the
gospel, and in the Catechism that systematizes the
teaching of Christ,
the fullness of God’s revelation to us.
There we get
glimpses of what is in the mind and heart of
God in the different situations we can find ourselves in.
We need to
reflect these thoughts, desires and reactions of God in
us.
The Letter to
the Hebrews says: “The word of God is living
and effectual, and more piercing than a two-edged sword,
and reaching
unto the division of soul and the spirit, of the joints
also and the
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart.”
(4,12)
To be sure,
meditating on the word of God is not simply an
intellectual exercise. It goes much further than that. It
involves
vital commitment. It has to involve our whole being.
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