Beginning, now and forever

THERE’S a prayer that we need to retrieve from the
recesses of our memory. It’s the Glory Be, where we find the words,
“As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.”

            Let’s put our mind and heart into these words if only to
remind ourselves strongly that we need to have a good sense of
continuity and consistency between our beginning and end, between the
past, present and future, between time and eternity.

            The words come after a previous part of the prayer where
we say, “Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” which
reminds us that the Triune God is the foundation of this continuity
and consistency. Otherwise, we would simply be dependent on our
estimation of things and our own powers, and would most likely get
confused, mistaken and lost.

            We have to exert no insignificant effort to develop this
sense of continuity and consistency since with our growing power to
dominate the world in all its aspects, we always have to the tendency
to convert our legitimate autonomy due to our freedom into total
independence and separation from God, our Father and Creator.

            For this, we need to exert no insignificant effort to grow
deep and strong in humility, because pride can easily grip us and can
even trick us blind by appearing to us under the guise of
humility—false humility, of course. Without humility, the gift of
faith which we need cannot take root and function in us.

            It’s important that whatever we do here on earth, starting
with our thoughts and desires all the way to our big enterprises and
projects, should be developed and pursued always in the context of the
beginning of things, during the creation of the universe, with God as
the source and creator of everything.

            It’s there where we can find the pristine state of things
in general or the integrity of creation in its original state still
unspoiled by us with our sins. It’s there where we get to know the
nature of things and their purpose. where all the laws—physical,
natural and moral—can be gleaned.

            This practice of referring everything to the beginning of
things should be inculcated deeply in us since it will help us to
understand and behave properly in our affairs of today as we move
toward the “forever.” Thus, we achieve a certain sense of continuity
and consistency in our life.

            In the gospel, for example, Christ referred the people to
how it was in the beginning when the question of divorce was brought
up. “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?...Why then did
Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her
away?” some people asked Christ. (Mt 19,3ff)

            The response of Christ was direct. “For your hardness of
heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning
it was not so.”

            He earlier explained that “from the beginning, he (God,
the Creator) made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a
man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and
the two shall become one.’ So they are no longer two but one. What
therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

            It’s important that we have faith in the living word of
God as contained in the Scripture, developed and expounded in
Tradition, and taught to us with divine authority through the Church
Magisterium.

            This faith in the living word of God is not some kind of a
legend, as some sector claims. It is a belief in something that has
been revealed and proven in history, not in something made up by us.

            If we do not have this belief, then we would be believing
in something else, most likely simply our own selves. And that would
be funny, to say the least. In that case, we would be making our own
selves our own God, our own creator, the final judge and arbiter of
things, the original lawgiver of the universe.

            We have to nurture this attitude and practice of referring
everything to the beginning of creation, and, in fact, to God himself,
because nowadays we tend to be so intoxicated by our own discoveries,
inventions and accomplishments as to forget God, to forget the reality
of creation.

            Again we would be making our own Tower of Babel, trying to
reach a certain heaven simply on our own efforts without any
reference, much less, help from God. And we know that that enterprise
can only spell our doom.