REIGN AGAIN

Today, the readings and commentary in my little French daily booklet seemed to chime so remarkably with my last post that I can’t resist sharing them here. In the passage from Wisdom, the wonderfully lyrical description given of her struck me as a perfect portrait of the Third Person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. And the use of the feminine pronoun (from the Greek original of ‘wisdom’) has something pleasing about it, since there is no reason necessarily to imagine the Spirit as masculine.

Wisdom 7:22 – 8:1

For within her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, incisive, unsullied, lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, shrewd, irresistible, beneficent, friendly to human beings, steadfast, dependable, unperturbed, almighty, all-surveying, penetrating all intelligent, pure and most subtle spirits.

For Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion; she is so pure, she pervades and permeates all things.

She is a breath of the power of God, pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; so nothing impure can find its way into her.

For she is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God's active power, and image of his goodness.

Although she is alone, she can do everything; herself unchanging, she renews the world, and, generation after generation, passing into holy souls, she makes them into God's friends and prophets;

for God loves only those who dwell with Wisdom.

She is indeed more splendid than the sun, she outshines all the constellations;

compared with light, she takes first place, for light must yield to night, but against Wisdom evil cannot prevail.

Strongly she reaches from one end of the world to the other and she governs the whole world for its good. [in the old translation: “and sweetly doth she order all things”.]

It is the Gospel reading that struck me most, with reference to my previous post: Jesus tells the Pharisees ‘God’s reign is among you’ – it’s there already. This should give us furiously to think. If it’s here already, it may just be growing slowly like dough with a core of yeast . . .

Luke 17:20-25

Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was to come, he gave them this answer, 'The coming of the kingdom of God does not admit of observation, and there will be no one to say, "Look, it is here! Look, it is there!" For look, the kingdom of God is among you.'

He said to the disciples, 'A time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of man and will not see it. They will say to you, "Look, he [or: it] is there!" or, "Look, he is here!" Make no move; do not set off in pursuit; for as the lightning flashing from one part of heaven lights up the other, so will be the Son of man when his Day comes.

But first he is destined to suffer grievously and be rejected by this generation.’

The commentary is by Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau, a Benedictine hermit from Southeast France whose comments are almost always the most intelligent and nourishing. She is the only hermit to whom I have ever written a fan-letter. (Obviously, there was no reply: I didn’t expect one.)

The Gospel verses belong to the “synoptic apocalypses” that deal with the Last Things, but not by way of calculation or speculation. In them, Christ rather invites us to take account of the unexpected nature of the irruption of God’s Kingdom and, in view of that, to live in vigilance and confidence. Jesus also warns us against the temptation of seeing signs everywhere, without taking time for discernment; a work to be undertaken under the guidance of the Spirit and in genuine inner freedom, yet without abdicating reason and good sense.

So we still wait: but not impatiently for a coup de ciel. We wait in 'vigilance and confidence' -- confident that the reign has already begun and that we are part of it; intelligently vigilant as semioticians of true signs.