bigger than life itself...

bigger than life itself...

Our paradoxical attitude gives rise to a deeper question:

what in fact is "life"?

And what does "eternity" really mean?
There are moments when it suddenly seems clear to us:
yes, this is what true "life" is this is what it should be like.
Besides, what we call "life" in our everyday language is not
real "life" at all. Saint Augustine, in the extended letter on
prayer which he addressed to a wealthy Roman, once wrote this:
ultimately we want only one thing "the blessed life",
the life which is simply life,
simply "happiness". In the final analysis, there is nothing else
that we ask for in prayer.
Our journey has no other goal it is about this alone.

But then Augustine also says: looking more closely,
we have no idea what we ultimately desire, what we would really
like. We do not know this reality at all; even in those moments when
we think we can reach out and touch it, it eludes us.
"We do not know what we should pray for as we ought," he says,
quoting Saint Paul (Rom 8:26). All we know is that it is not this.
Yet in not knowing, we know that this reality must exist.
"There is therefore in us a certain LEARNED IGNORANCE (docta
ignorantia), so to speak", he writes. We do not know what we would
really like; we do not know this "true life"; and yet we know that
there must be something we do not know towards which we feel driven.

I think that in this very precise and permanently valid way,
Augustine is describing man's essential situation, the situation
that gives rise to all his contradictions and hopes. In some way we
want life itself, true life, untouched even by death; yet at the
same time we do not know the thing towards which we feel driven. We
cannot stop reaching out for it, and yet we know that all we can
experience or accomplish is not what we yearn for. This
unknown "thing" is the true "hope" which drives us, and at the same
time the fact that it is unknown is the cause of all forms of
despair and also of all efforts, whether positive or destructive,
directed towards worldly authenticity and human authenticity. The
term "eternal life" is intended to give a name to this
known "unknown". Inevitably it is an inadequate term that creates
confusion. "Eternal", in fact, suggests to us the idea of something
interminable, and this frightens us; "life" makes us think of the
life that we know and love and do not want to lose,
even though very often it brings more toil than satisfaction, so
that while on the one hand we desire it, on the other hand we do not
want it. To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons
us and in some way to sense that eternity is not an unending
succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the
supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we
embrace totality this we can only attempt.

It would be like plunging into the ocean of INFINITE LOVE, a moment
in which time the before and after to longer exists. We can only
attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full
sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we
are simply overwhelmed with joy. This is how Jesus expresses it in
Saint John's Gospel: "I will see you again and your hearts will
rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you" (16:22). We must
think along these lines if we want to understand the object of
Christian hope, to understand what it is that our faith, our being
with Christ, leads us to expect.

For St. Augustine this meant a totally new life. He once described
his daily life in the following terms:
"The turbulent have to be corrected, the faint-hearted cheered up,
the weak supported; the Gospel's opponents need to be refuted, its
insidious enemies guarded against; the unlearned need to be taught,
the indolent stirred up, the argumentative checked; the proud must
be put in their place, the desperate set on their feet, those
engaged in quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the
oppressed to be liberated, the good to be encouraged, the bad to be
tolerated; all must be loved"[22].
"The Gospel terrifies me"[23] introducing that healthy fear which
prevents us from living for ourselves alone and compels us to pass
on the hope we hold in common.

So now we can say: Christianity was not only "good news" the
communication of a hitherto unknown content. In our language we
would say:
the Christian message was not only "informative" but
"PERFORMATIVE".
That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that
can be known it is one that makes things happen and is life-
changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown
open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has
been granted the gift of a NEW life.


(spe salvi)


HaPPy NeW LiFe!!