…evolving? Toward Mutual Indwelling?

As we move toward our Business Chapter, we continue to pray, “Holy Mystery evolving, energize our response.” Have you wondered what these words really mean? Let’s check it out.

The Holy Mystery is God, right? Not so fast. God doesn’t evolve. God is the hiddenness that calls forth evolution into the future. God is the Word in whom all things come to be. God is the Spirit of self-giving love in which all things unfold into the future. God is love-hidden; God is love-expressed; God is love-given as gift. So what is this evolving all about? What’s evolving?

In an amazing act of self-giving love, the Mystery we call “God” burst out of its dance of love to create the angelic and material world. This outburst of love was a single Word, and “all that came to be, came to be in him, and without him was made nothing that was made.” On the science side this breath of love, this outburst, is called “the big bang.” Atoms met and kissed and basic elements appeared. We finally appeared, made of cosmic soup…our physical frames made of stardust. So…who ever said this evolving is finished? Scripture reminds us, “We know not what we shall be, but we shall be like him…”

Our DNA is partner in a wedding. The eternal Word married us, never to part. The mystery of the incarnation is the wedding, and Mary’s womb, the wedding chamber. The Word has bonded the Godhead to us, so where we go, God goes. There is no gap. We made a sin-gap, but he healed it with his blood. There is no gap. And we are evolving. So the Bridegroom goes along for the ride. In fact, that presence will make sure we arrive according to plan. When the risen Jesus ascended to his Father, the first thing God said, was “Son, where are the rest?” And he said, “They’re coming, Father, they’re coming.”

So we live our ordinary days trying to remember “I am in you, and you are in me” a mutual indwelling. It is we who are evolving. But he is there…the unchanging One, carrying us like a bride into our future. He in us and we in him…that is the full Holy Mystery. There is no gap. The Word, bonded to our humble humanness, carries us in time/space into all that we can be. He and we together are The Holy Mystery evolving. For without him we are nothing, and can do nothing. With him we are his Body, calling all of culture to the dream of God, his love-breath energizing us with the same Spirit love-breath that burst forth long ago. So we pray….”Holy Mystery evolving, energize our response.” “Free us, enlighten us, seize us; lead us, awaken us, draw us; guide us, open us, urge us; nudge us, move us, teach us.”