God Knows Us As We Are

God knows us. He watches over us and understands how we see the world. Each of us has a journey to Him that is unique. Our lives and our experiences form our unique relationship with Him. 

No one is too young or too old to understand Jesus. The saints have unique stories of their growth in holiness. We were made to be saints, too. We were made to find our way to God in the unique path God has laid out for us in our lives.

written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael Weston

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG WHILE YOU ARE LISTENING:

Well, did you notice what I was talking about in Galatians?  Paul is on the ass, donkey, that’s the word, on the way to Damascus.  He has his experience with the risen Lord.  But there is no infusion of knowledge.  He is a scholar of the Jewish law.  He is a scholar of Judaism.  He is recognized in it, but he does not from that moment know Jesus Christ.  Because you see what happens.  He goes in.  He was a persecutor.  He's changed.  And then he was set apart.  And then he went to Arabia for three years. 

What did he do in Arabia?  He studied.  What did he study?  Now Arabia is not Saudi Arabia.  It is more adjacent to Israel.  He was studying with people who were familiar with Christ.  And then he goes to Jerusalem.

Only after he feels comfortable that he has a knowledge of Christ, does he go to Jerusalem and confer with Peter.  He stayed with him for fifteen days.  What did he do there?  He listened.  He was taught.

And if you look into the history of the Church, it is really kind of remarkable.  The youngest priests that we have now generally would be 25 years old.  The way that the schooling is set up, they get an undergraduate school, and then they go to a graduate school and the seminary and all is mixed together.  But it generally takes until they are the age of 25.

If you go back into the annals of the Church, you will generally find that priests became priests when they were 25 years old.  It is something that is consistent.  It is not a teaching of the Church.  But to get a young man to the point of having the sufficient knowledge of Christianity, and, more importantly, the maturity to understand the significance of Christ, 25 seems to be the age.  And again, it isn't, "I believe!"  There is a process of learning and understanding.  And we see this in Christ constantly, his teaching as I say.  He is constantly telling us to think.  He doesn't give us the answer except in very rare instances, and then His answers are, "Love God and love neighbor."

We have to think about what that means.  Christ is constantly putting us in a position where we not only have to exercise our mental facilities to try to understand what he is talking about, but we have to do it from the context of a level of maturity. 

Martha and Mary.  I love my sister.  I still have scars all over my legs from where she kicked me, because my parents forced us to do dishes together and she kicked me and then she would run off and say I was going to hit her.  I never understood the fairness of that. 

Mary and Martha grew up together. Jesus tells Martha, "Mary has taken the better part."  Martha is going, "No!  She was always lazy.  She always made me do the work.  Mom and Dad would tell us to do something; I would do it and she'd be sitting there playing on her computer.  No, you don't understand!"

That's the reaction of immaturity.  It really is.  "It's not fair!"  Yet Jesus calls on us to look at the reading and look at what it really means.  He's not saying that Martha is not a holy person.  He is not saying that she’s not doing the right thing.  In fact, in a lot of the teachings that He has, she is doing exactly the right thing.  She is acting as the servant.  For others.  She is taking care of others.  She is loving neighbor.  Yet He tells her that Mary has the better thing.

What is it that that means?  He is telling us that there is something more important.  What is that that is more important?  HIM.  That in the priorities of our lives it is so easy to say, "It's not fair!" “Robert has a nicer shirt than I."  "It's not fair that he is richer than I am."  "It's not fair that he doesn’t have to wake up every morning and shave his beard."  "It's not fair!"  And when we talk to teenagers who are getting nice and full of themselves because they are getting so mature.  I remember; I have four kids.  The refrain is, "It's not fair!"  When in fact there is a reality that's behind that."

And as we reach a level of maturity that we are called to bring to Our Lord Jesus Christ, that's part of it.  Yes, Mary has the wonder of sitting at Christ's feet.  We are to bring ourselves to Christ, but we also have to bring the reality of our lives.

And what Jesus calls us to do is to think about, to contemplate, to bring into our lives His teachings, and bring Him into the teachings, into the practicality of our lives.

Martha could say, "Jesus, you are right.  Give me a second.  I will take all this stuff, put it back in the kitchen and I am going to sit down and both of us are going to sit at your feet, and none of us are going to have anything to eat." That's not the way Jesus is doing it.

And so, when we look at our lives, some of us more mature and older than others, some of us a whole lot more mature and older than others, we understand that the teachings of Christ, coming through His humanity, recognize the reality of what we are.

St. Paul gets zapped by Christ, but he does not get an infused knowledge and wisdom.  He has to go study.  He has to think about it.  He has to contemplate it.  He has to learn at the feet of Caephas.

And just as we are called to listen to the teachings of Luke, in the gospel of Luke, we are called to bring not only our abilities to think, but our abilities to understand that come through maturity.  When John, the oldest among us, I think, yeah, the oldest among us right now, hears the story of Mary and Martha, he hears it and understands it with a range of experiences and knowledge that the two young ladies in the back don't have.  He understands it differently.  And that's part of what our faith involves.

Our faith does not involve just here it is, it's a static thing.  It's a real living thing and Jesus calls upon us to bring the reality of our existence to our belief in Him.  To fill ourselves with understanding and knowledge, but to bring that understanding and knowledge in the context of the lives that we live so we can understand the depths of what is there.  It simply isn't the page, it's the reality of the teachings of Christ.

And that's a reality, like I said, in the history of the Church, generally it places the age of 25 for priests because they do have that level, well, they have more of that level of knowledge, and understanding and maturity.  And each and every one of us, yeah have that wonderful gift of being older, theoretically more mature, and being able to comes to a greater and deeper understanding of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

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