Lest You Die

 As I mentioned in previous posts, I've been spending some good time in Adoration recently. Nothing is more strange to modern sensibilities than laying prostrate before the appearance of a wafer, in silence, accomplishing nothing. A "waste of time," as they say.

We can only worship the Living God in this way because His face stays hidden from us.  “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live” (Ex 33:20). Could you imagine if our electrical systems didn't have circuit breakers? We overload a fuse and it burns the the house to the ground, or experience instant cardiac arrest with live wires. Instead, in such an event, a circuit on the breaker box trips and breaks the circuit so that doesn't happen. 

God also withholds the horror of Hell to keep our hair from turning white. I imagine that were we to see it fully, we would be so gripped by fear that we would be unable to love. I don't know. For St. Lucia, her vision only lasted for a moment, "thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear."

Were we to see God's glory in it's entirety, I would suspect we would be leveled by the greatness of the divide between our own sinfulness and God's goodness so much that it would take our breath away.  "If you kept an account of sin, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared" (Ps 130:3). And yet, what we worship, we have the supreme privilege of taking into our very being in Communion. It's a wonder our vessels don't burst from the inside out. A testament to our imperfect faith and tepid hearts.

God comes to us in the guise of bread and wine so He doesn't paralyze us, constantly tripping the circuits of our finite minds, and allows us to live our lives capable of loving Him apart from fear. "I no longer fear God, but I love Him. For perfect love casts out fear,” as the great hermit St. Anthony wrote. 

We will die, make no mistake, and then "we will see God face to face." But until then we see through a lens darkly (1 Cor 13:12).