TOO BEAUTIFUL TO BE TRUE?
An atheist friend once said, “The Bible message is nice to read, but it is too beautiful to be true”. Of course, it is beautiful, who would say otherwise? But whether it is true or not, depends on if one shares and believes in its vision. Miracles can happen only for those with faith and belief.
The decline of religion, especially in the west in recent decades, if not century, has left a vacuum to be filled. Secularism has taken up much of that vacuum and gives birth to all sorts of ‘isms’: Capitalism, Marxism, Fascism, Populism … to name few. Interestingly is the recent wokeism with its banal concerns in the eyes of people whose occupation is just about their daily bread and butter. So, what is our society left with, when these ‘ism’ are creating more problems than they can solve? Lost? Confused? Divided? Or who cares, whatever.
Humanity is such an interesting and self-contradictory creature. We are busy building ourselves a Babel tower, only to destroy it ourselves and then build another one, and then destroy it … the cycle so repeats itself. We are not happy and satisfied with anything built with our hands and brains. We love to build our own golden calf, bowing down before it, and then destruction and tragedy follows as a result of this idolatrous worship. The madness of the crowds!
One may wonder if we are inherently capable of self-fulfilment, or is it in another transcendent reality beyond, where while living in this body and world we find ourselves exiled until we are connected to home, as Paul said, our homeland is in heaven? Or, “Rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven”. (Gospel of today)
The people of Israel lived in exile as a result of their unfaithfulness to the God of covenant. In the midst of total despondence beyond redemption, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof”. Isaiah came along and foretold a future for those who were sitting in the shadow of death. The ‘rejoice’ message is resounding like the nurselings who will be restored with delight upon “her consoling and glorious breasts”. (First Reading)
We have to come back to our own selves as people who are capable of peace. Peace is not the absence of conflict and trouble while being ‘lambs amongst wolves’ but the inherent strength to withstand whatever storm that life throws at us. If he is a man of peace, “your peace will go and rest upon him”.
The beautiful is not only true but also redemptive.