Today we explore the effects of translations, linguistics and hermeneutics have on our human condition which we will call our psychological well-being, as well as on our God given divine nature. Before we get started, let’s agree that this is an exploration of discovery, not a treatise on the truth. As created creatures we can only hear the truth, we cannot speak the truth. The truth is the word of God spoken to our ancestors since the beginning of time and made known to us by Christ Jesus presence among us and the Spirit He left with us. We can, however, discern, contemplate, and understand through the powers given to us this simple idea: if we choose our words carefully they can point to the truth.

By all accounts, the New Testament is a translation of the original scriptures which was then translated into  modern languages. Each of these translations tried to capture the original meaning and intention of our Triune God’s words. The same can be said about the Old Testament. However, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Now that Israel has resurrected Hebrew and made it their national language, along with all the contemporary discoveries in the Caves of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of today’s Old Testament appears very close to the original writings. Still, there is the struggle to translate the Hebrew into todays’ languages. So, linguistics certainly plays a pivotal role as we work to understand the Bible.

More important than the words we use is the interpretation we apply to those words and phrases. More than read the Bible, we study the meaning of the Bible to discover the timeless truths ever present in the pages. This is what scholars call hermeneutics, which are the principals and standard used to interpret the original content. The practical application of this process is called exegesis, extracting the original content from the context in order to understand the original meaning.

One other point I would like the reader to consider, is the lens we are looking through as we read the Bible. If we are skeptics, we may be reading the Bible to find out what’s wrong with it. Perhaps our doubts and questions may hinder an honest examination. If we are believers, whether we are Catholics, Protestants, or any other contemporary Christians, this will influence our interpretation because of our background and what we consider accepted knowledge.

There is also an overarching aspect which in my opinion does not get enough attention. As Jesus told Peter, you are thinking as man thinks, not as God thinks. This idea broadcasts itself into our own world view, which is to say, the working model we use to understand and explain our world and how we see ourselves in it. So, like Peter, are we looking for definitive answers? Is clarity a priority? Does our narrative need to be like a documentary, portraying science, and evidence as key components? Or have we put knowing the Triune God rightly ahead of knowing about the Triune God?

I can say with a great deal of confidence, that there are many facets in anyone’s world view. However, the Bible seems to point to an even bigger idea, one that incorporates the concept of this and that and this also. More than the definition and description we get from reading Holy Scripture, there is also the experience. Just as a good novel can transport the reader into another world, so too, with each reading of Scripture we may be transported into a different realm of understanding . Many say this is the mystery of the Bible, that on each reading something different is experienced. That the words seem to come alive, teaching, comforting, and presenting a vision. A vision which is written in our hearts, yet we experience it as if it were just discovered.

Instinctively, we all realize no one is so compartmentalized that they can simply switch seamlessly from one world view to another, or accurately depict and describe each facet within a world view. Everyone brings their own subjective bias with them wherever they go, which is a good thing, something we might call character, personality, or temperament. What I am suggesting is we might combine linguistics, hermeneutics, and the experience of the Bible into a different way of experiencing the Bible. We might actively move the emphasis away from the human condition with its psychological complications and complexities, more toward our spiritual nature with its abstractions and reflections. So, to this end, I would like you to consider several words and phrases which might help us reach a more metaphysical experience. Again, rest assured, I am not trying or suggesting changing the Bible, I am as Matthew Kelly so famously said, rediscovering the Bible.

One more lead in thought, I am relying on a model. Think of it as a construct, a way of storing, organizing, and presenting my thoughts. Everyone has one and uses it, consciously or unconsciously; we have a world view which works for each of us. We have a model because we need a model, it’s an underlying principle. The big picture model for me is form and content. I think definition and description reflect the formative and experience reflects the transformative, which can be seen as the worldly and the divine. As I have said many times, if my model is mostly complete, working as it should, then I will be able to assimilate content from other models into mine, given the content is reflective of ideas which point to our Lord and God. For me, dialogue should be a give and take about a form and about shared content, without passing judgement on who is right or wrong. Growth is the expansion of an individual’s model, making it more complete, cohesive, and understandable in everyday language. Inconsistencies can always be identified and corrected enriching everyone’s experience, unifying and nurturing all those participating in the arena; we might call this evangelization.   

Rather than start with an exercise on definition and description, I would like to begin with a practical example. From the Collect of October 26, 2020 we read: “Almighty ever-living God, increase our faith, hope and charity, and make us love what you command, so that we may merit what you promise.” Moving the focus from the words which seem to indicate an appeal to the worldly as we ask God to “make us” do something so we might be good enough for what He promises. I suggest, we focus on our own internal disposition so we will be ready to accept His words, gifts, and promises. The interpretation of the reading for this purpose could read as follows: Almighty ever-living God, increase our faith, hope and charity, and lead us in love to your commandments, so that we may remain grateful and thankful for your promises.

Now, what follows is an explanation of words and phrases which might help the reader move more smoothly away from the definitive and more focused on the infinite.

Let’s consider the word reward. Everyday language tells us, a reward is something given in return for performing an action. This is the standard idea of cause and effect. In theology the merit promised by God is a reward because the human being is physically free either to resist or co-operate with divine grace. Even in the theological sense, I see the cause and effect; make the right choice and get something in return. Perhaps there is a third way to interpret the word reward. Christ Jesus makes it quite clear we can’t earn our way into heaven. St. Paul and St. James certainly preached this principal. So, if we can’t earn our way to heaven, then going to heaven isn’t really a reward. Thinking or considering going to heaven as a reward sets up the  cause-and-effect structure within our psychological human condition. As theology tells us, this can be a good thing because in our human condition we want to have the right disposition, which is being in the right frame of mind to see, accept and receive God’s grace. At the same time, thinking of your actions for your own designated result puts you in the equation, and limits the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit by confining the Spirit to the limits of your imagination or your envisioned ideals based on your worldly experience. If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done. What would this third way of interpreting to word reward look like?

Let’s consider going to heaven not as a reward, but as a benefit. We are all God’s children; He is our inheritance. By virtue of our very existence, we are all pre-destined to go to heaven. None of us know how He will get us there, but all of us are going with Him anyway. St. Augustine said, “God loves each of us as if we were the only one to love.” Clearly this is how we are all equal in the eyes of the Lord, however, not all equal in the worldly realm of people and ideas. We all have the same opportunity, a free will choice to be His followers and believers, or we can write our own script. So, think of our benefit of going to heaven in terms of working for a large corporation. We all work in the same building. We all have access to the same insurance plan. We can participate in the 401-K retirement strategy if we choose. We all get the same paid holidays. Obviously, we don’t have the same job, make the same salary, or command the same prestige, we do share the same benefits.

Again, we have been told and taught time and time again, you can’t earn your way to heaven. So, in a world of everyday deeds, there are none of them which propel us to His heavenly realm. It is our disposition to receive God’s grace, and by His mercy in the face of our failures, we follow Him into His heavenly realm. Having this idea in our model, the reciprocal also holds. We do not sin our way into Hell. We don’t invoke God’s wrath for our sins any more than we invoke God’s grace for our support of the Church, which are our good deeds. We are not punished for our transgressions. Certainly, our sins and transgressions lead us away from right worship, away from a well-formed conscience, and away from the internal disposition to accept God’s love.  The Lord is more than ready to forgive us, we are the ones who condemn ourselves. Jesus said all souls can be forgiven, the only sin which will not be forgiven, is the sin against the Holy Spirit. In the hour of our death the Lord will come to us, just as the moment of our acceptance we receive the gift of grace, the glory of goodness, and redemption through mercy, we can also be the one who denies the Spirit and refuses the gifts.

Conventional wisdom, Holy Scripture both old and new, and a barrel of commentary ink, tell us we should seek the Lord. Rightfully so, we should turn our attention to the Lord, to actively seek Him, and to improve ourselves. All of this strengthens our psychological well-being, helps fine tune our philosophical world view, and aligns our disposition toward His graciousness. However, this is not the pathway to the Lord, it is simply the on ramp to the pathway. This seeking is a conventional exercise which emphasizes the importance of our own disposition. By applying ourselves to a purposeful enquiry, by spending time in prayer and contemplation, we open ourselves to the Lord and the gifts He brings. Charisms are gifts given to the Church through individuals who have received them realizing they aren’t theirs to keep until they have been given away. So, what does our model tell us? We can’t seek a gift, we can’t find a gift, we can only receive a gift. It’s not our pursuits which brings the gifts, indeed in some instances our own efforts impede the process by demanding the Lord gift us in ways we can understand, instead of us discovering the impossible. Seek and you shall receive is a glimpse of the worldly, not an insight into the divine. What we think we know can ruin what we don’t know. We seek God not to find Him, rather to receive Him.

Most people are looking for definitive answers. Two choices are always nice, it’s either one or the other. One problem with this type of thinking is it leads to fundamentalism, which is one view from one perspective, and not much room for growth. Another problem is from the outset there isn’t much room for imagination or new ideas or a general openness to any other possibilities. Finally, I would also like to suggest, this “one or the other” approach, is all too ready to accept what seems to be obvious, what tends to support common clichés, and dismisses in-depth questioning as irrelevant.

So, common knowledge tells us, it’s either love or hate; not so. You are no more born with hate than you are with racism. Both ideas are emulated from the societies in which we live. If you as the reader want to use this either-or approach, ask yourself, why would you hate anyone? The word of the Lord is written on our hearts and this word is love, why would you make room for hate? I suggest when you read the word “hate” in scripture you interpret it as “love less”.  Consider this, it’s not love or hate, it’s love or fear. You don’t hate the other person; you are afraid of the other. You are afraid of what they might do and more importantly, you are afraid of what you might have to do, because of their actions.

We can examine these worldly concepts in terms of the infinite because there is a finite aspect of God, which exists in this distinctive reality He created. Why finite: because God cannot deny Himself, by His own Nature and through His worldly creation, He is God. God cannot be evil. Evil is the absence of God. God cannot sin, sin is turning away from God; God cannot turn away from Himself. God cannot lie. There are no circumstances, no contingencies in which God would misdirect or misinform us for our own good. God cannot punish. He can cure and heal, He can re-align, He can rehabilitate, He can discipline but He cannot punish. In our worldly view we may see what is unfolding as punishment, however, seen as justice points to the truth. I think what commentary has tried to do over millennium, and rightfully so, is to tie the worldly to the transcendent in order to present a more homogeneous view of man in his man kindness. However, this can have the effect of deluding both the formative and transformative. I am suggesting a cleaner separation done at our and for our convenience, so a closer examination is possible. Just as we discussed the word reward, the word wrath should get the same consideration. Biblically, we can see wrath as His love for us made manifest through our sin, however, for me this becomes a rationale not the truth. Again, God is beyond our world view, however, our world view should be consistent with an expression of His Nature, and any world view which truly reflects God will be consistent with His Nature. Scripture tells us God’s Mercy and Justice, sun and rain, reign down on sinners and saints alike; all receive, not all accept.

Why contrast good and evil? In these terms, good is the goodness of the Lord, evil is the absence of this goodness, not the opposite of it. Why compare belief with disbelief? We as believers are confronted not with belief or disbelief, for us, it is either belief or disobedience. The foundation for this idea can be found in Genesis 3:11; “You have eaten, then, from the  tree of which I had forbidden you to eat.”

There are other words the biblical authors used to appeal to our psychological identity and to create a “need to know”. Examine the word secret. We know there are no secrets, the Lord doesn’t keep secrets. All that He is, is made known to us through His words and deeds. Our Bible is unique in all the spiritual writings in that it is a story of how God seeks us and reveals Himself to us. From the beginning of biblical times, it was God who sought out Abram, bestowed on him His blessings and sent him into the world to proclaim God to all the nations. God’s intention was never to be hidden. Examine this Entrance Antiphon. “The Lord will come and he will not delay. He will illumine what is hidden in darkness and reveal himself to all the nations.” Doesn’t this mean: The Lord will come and he will not delay. He will illuminate our world and our lives as He reveals Himself to all the nations.  

We as twenty first century believers have a broadened view of the Church as it developed over time. Through scholastic disciplines and intellectual pursuits, we can better understand our endeavor to create an internal disposition ready to receive our Lord with His gifts, blessings, and love for each of us. We acknowledge this point of view in the metaphor of looking through the incense as it rises from the altar carrying our prayers to heaven. Sweet and appealing to the senses, another facet of beauty, yet distracting and disruptive at the same time.

There are many metaphors which might come to mind and need to be explored. Consider the idea of seeing God face to face. Through all of recorded history, gods have been depicted in some physical form or another. Yet, in our heart of hearts we know God has no gender, no physical form or perhaps better said, He has any form He wills to assume. Countless persons who describe their  near-death experience report seeing a light. What’s interesting is the description of the light, its attributes, and its physical form. In my witness of my father’s particular judgement, the Lord appeared as the brilliance of a mountain of white light and I must say, I would no more look directly at it as I would stare at the sun. Doesn’t the idea of seeing God face to face simply try to capture the profound presence of the Lord, experienced in an unimaginable way?

Next, let’s consider the word sacrifice. Is sacrificial love in harmony with the teachings of the Church? Did our Lord, Jesus Christ sacrifice His life for us? Does Holy Scriptures teach us to be imitators of Christ? Are we made in His image and likeness? Certainly, we have heard the homilies, read the commentary; we hear the voice in our conscience saying it’s better to give than receive. Of all the commandments which speak to the truth, isn’t love your neighbor as you love yourself the greatest and simplest instruction on how to live with each other and in each other. As parents and children of parents, as brothers and sisters, friends, colleagues, allies, strangers on the street and souls in distress all over the world, hasn’t our sacrificial love reached out to all. The answer must certainly be, yes. And so, it is, but is it the only answer?

Bishop Barron tells us, Love is willing the good of the other for the sake of the other. He tells us, the Almighty Father doesn’t just love, He is Love. Our Father wills the very existence of the universe, with, through and in love, from second to second, in every aspect and respect. Our Father knows all, sees all, and uses all for our greater glory, for our greatest good. He knows for sure and for certain what is and what will be. So, for us, too, love is a conscious decision, a willful act, grounded in heart and mind. The difference being, we don’t know for sure and for certain what will be. Christ’s death on the Cross was a willful act with a purposeful end. He is the cause and the effect. Not so with us, we do not know the effect, cannot see the result. By thinking we can know the result, we put ourselves into the equation and have introduced the question of quality and quantity. Doesn’t this sound egocentric? Now, not only have we decided to act for the greatest good, we are also deciding on the cost and the results, something which we cannot know. However, we can apply the God standard and ask ourselves are we acting out of love, humility and appealing to everyone’s best interest and highest ideals; this we can do. We cannot sacrifice, we can make the best decision, and we can leave everything in God’s goodness. So, I suggest we think of sacrifice as an outflowing of love. Love as a stand-alone goodness and merit, detached from any considerations, calculations, or conclusions.  

G.K. Chesterton said, “Paradox is the truth standing on its head to get attention.” So, let’s admit we cannot sacrifice; we can be in this moment receiving the gift of Grace. We can remove the obstacles in our hearts and watch Christ’s goodness flow out of us into the waiting world, a world in great need. I offer you this; before we act, before we give of our time and resources, before any whisper or hint or glimmer of goodness, we receive the suffering of this world. Yes, in a world where suffering has no value, where suffering is avoided at any cost, we embrace it, we smother it, we accept it willingly and thankfully, because in the suffering lies strength. The strength and courage to lean on the Cross. The strength and courage which brings the endurance and peace at the end of the day. I’m not suggesting we suffer for ourselves, not suggesting we suffer for others and certainly not suggesting we suffer for the sake of suffering. I am suggesting where Christ gives Divine Mercy, we show self-giving love and earthly compassion. For us, as humans, we cannot sacrifice, we can show an outpouring of love.  If sacrifice is an outpouring of love for the other, then nothing is lost, and everything is gain.

So, this is what I have discovered. We are all mystics, each of us has a personal relationship with the Lord, as we come to understand He is more than our Lord. Each of us has a model we use, a world view which defines how we make our observations and draw our conclusions. Since our vision is the same, which is finding our path to Heaven, the model is less important than the vision. What is important about our model is it is consistent, without contradictions and perhaps most importantly, it will not lead us into sinful behavior and the exercise of it in our daily lives will not cause others to stumble. If these few pages were written succinctly and the reader has kept an open mind, then the conclusion should be obvious; there is no conclusion there is only constant conversion.