~ by Father Ron Camarda

Beloved, I was reading from the Office of Readings the following homily by Saint Gregory. It was amazing how much it reminded me of my ongoing journey to get to know and seek God. In the end, it is God alone who seeks me and probes me. It will be helpful to open your Bible after reading my article this week and read Psalm 139 out loud slowly. I am sure you will dance, sing and radiate God’s love.

From a homily by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, bishop:

Consider the feelings of a man who looks down into the depths of the sea from the top of a mountain. This is similar to my own experience when the voice of the Lord from on high, as from a mountaintop, reached the unfathomable depths of my intellect. Along the seacoast, you may often see mountains facing the sea. It is as though they had been sliced in two, with a sheer drop from top to bottom. At the top a projection forms a ledge overhanging the depths below. If a man were to look down from that ledge, he would be overcome by dizziness. In this same way my soul grows dizzy when it hears the great voice of the Lord saying: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.

The vision of God is offered to those who have purified their hearts. Yet, no man has seen God at any time. These are the words of the great Saint John and they are confirmed by Saint Paul’s lofty thought, in the words: God is he whom no one has seen or can see. He is that smooth, steep and sheer rock, on which the mind can find no secure resting place to get a grip or lift ourselves up. In the view of Moses, he is inaccessible. In spite of every effort, our minds cannot approach him. We are cut off by the words: No man can see God and live. And yet, to see God is eternal life. But John, Paul and Moses, pillars of our faith, all testify that it is impossible to see God. Look at the dizziness that affects the soul drawn to contemplating the depths of these statements. If God is life, then he who does not see God does not see life. Yet God cannot be seen; the apostles and prophets, inspired byt the Holy Spirit, have testified to this. Into what straits is man’s hope driven!

Yet God does raise and sustain our flagging hopes. He rescued Peter from drowning and made the sea into a firm surface beneath his feet. He does the same for us; the hands of the Word of God are stretched out to us when we are out of our depth, buffeted and lost in speculation. Grasped firmly in his hands, we shall be without fear: Blessed are the pure of heart, he says, for they shall see God.

RESPONSORY

No one has ever seen God;

—the only Son of God, nearest to the Father’s heart, has made him known.

Great is the Lord and highly to be praised; his greatness is beyond our understanding.

—The only Son of God, nearest to the Father’s heart, has made him known.

+++++++++

When I visited Ireland, I did have this sense of fear and mysticism, especially near the cliffs. When I was called to go to the War in Iraq seven years ago, it was the same dizzying sense of fear and mysticism. When we have to go through the death of one of our loved ones, the depth and fear is almost unfathomable. And yet God never leaves us alone in our danger, fear and tears. This summer, I urge you all to keep on wrestling with this God that is impossible to know, and yet Our Beloved God desires this with all God’s Sacred Heart. Not even genuine vertigo kept me from looking over the cliff.

CLICK HERE to watch my “Vertigo” video filmed at Cliffs of Mohr in Ireland.

Have a wonderful week in the Body and Blood of Christ.

Love, joy, peace,

Father Ron Moses +

www.tearinthedesert.com

Psalm 139

O Lord, you search me and you know me,

you know my resting and my rising,

you discern my purpose from afar.

You mark when I walk or lie down,

all my ways lie open to you.

.

Before ever a word is on my tongue

you know it, O Lord, through and through.

Behind and before you besiege me,

your hand ever laid upon me.

Too wonderful for me, this knowledge,

too high, beyond my reach.

.

O where can I go from your spirit,

or where can I flee from your face?

If I climb the heavens, you are there.

.

If I lie in the grave, you are there.

If I take the wings of the dawn

and dwell at the sea’s furthest end,

even there your hand would lead me,

your right hand would hold me fast.

.

If I say: “Let the darkness hide me

and the light around me be night,”

even darkness is not dark for you

and the night is as clear as the day

.

For it was you who created my being,

knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I thank you for the wonder of my being,

for the wonders of all your creation.

.

Already you knew my soul,

my body held no secret from you

when I was being fashioned in secret

and molded in the depths of the earth.

.

Your eyes saw all my actions,

they were all of them written in your book;

every one of my days was decreed

before one of them came into being.

.

To me, how mysterious your thoughts,

the sum of them not to be numbered!

If I count them, they are more than the sand;

to finish, I must be eternal, like you.

.

O search me, God, and know my heart.

O test me and know my thoughts.

See that I follow not the wrong path

and lead me in the path of life eternal.

Father Ron Camarda is a retired Naval Chaplain and author of “Tear in the Desert,” a powerful book containing his memoirs of life and death at the Battle for Fallujah. Father Ron appears on EWTN and recently won the Silver Medal from the Military Writers Society of America.