INSPIRATIONALS

THE RESTLESSNESS OF MAN IN THE SEARCH FOR GOD AND THE IMPORT OF THE DIVINE GRACE

Does everything point to its origin?

Truly, no created thing exists without an origin. Nothing creates itself. Everything is created by something else or by another person, visible or invisible. God, the Source and Origin of all things, who is himself not created, but out of his infinite goodness, mercy and love, created all entities and thus freed the world from a ‘null and void’ situation, on the one hand, visible -man and other living and non living creatures- and invisible -the heavenly inhabitants: angels- (cf. Col 1:3, Jn. 1:3);  and on the other hand, directly (which exemplifies itself in the creation account in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis, in which God created and arranged the world in six days) and indirectly (which exemplifies itself in the creations and the initiatives of man since the mandate “fill the earth and subdue it” in Genesis 1:28 was given to him by God). God, in each of the six days always saw all that he made as good (cf. Gen1: 4, 10, 12, 15, 21, 25, 31), and thus was pleased. Exceptionally, and in the last day of creation, God created man in his own image, and after this, saw that all he made were very good (cf. Gen 1:31).

Hence, God created man, and man in turn enjoys the favor of being regarded as a co-creator of God. If man is asked: who do you account to? Who made you? Who carters for you?, where do you belong?, his answers surely will reflect God as his Origin and Source. Similarly, if any of the handworks of man is questioned, such that a tool is asked; tool, who uses you? It will say, the carpenter; the car, the computer, the clock, who do you owe your workability?, they will unanimously mention their makers. Generally then, all the creatures of man recourse back to man for repairs, maintenance, as it dawns on man to convert the resources of nature (be it in the form of liquid -crude oil- or in the form of solid -gold- or yet in the form of gas –Carbon dioxide; CO₂) into products that can aid man’s living. If the natural materials are asked; why do you remain raw?, they will answer that it is because man has refused to discover them. Therefore, everything has its origin, and always implicitly or explicitly points to such an origin.

Is man in need of God?

A

s a creature of God, man would always recline to God when problems confront him. He feels secure and indeed full of faith that his Creator can stop any tension or suffering from meeting him (cf. Mtt 8:28-34, Mk 4: 35-41), can immunize his susceptible nature (cf. Mtt 14: 29), and can repair any complications arising from himself and from his environment (cf. Mk 2:4, 5: 28; Lk. 9:37-43). In fact, “He is the source of man’s happiness” (John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor,1993, no. 9). In a similar way, John Paul reiterates in the same encyclical that “what man is and what he must do becomes clear as soon as God reveals Himself” (no. 10). This is to demonstrate that man can only find his foothold in God. Without God, man is equal to nothing and indeed does not exist. Connectively, the Bishop and theologian, Fenelon (1516-1715) and his co-writer, Madame Guyon exposes to us that God who made us out of nothing, re-creates us, as it were, every moment.  Of ourselves, we remain nothing; we are but what God has made us, and for so long time only as He pleases. If He withdraws His hand; that hand that sustains us, we simply plunge into the abyss of annihilation, as a stone held in the air falls by its own weight when its support is removed. Existence and life, then, are only ours because God has conferred them unto us (cf. Fenelon Franḉois and Madame Guyon, Ways of Spiritual Progress: Instructions in the Divine Life of the Soul, edited by James W. Metclaf, New York, 1853, Ch. 2). Man needs God for functionality. The unction man needs for his function to be able to efficiently exercise his earthly ministry can only be provided by his Creator, who is Himself the Source of the oil of lubrification.  

In other words, man enjoys this favor (grace) and privilege of being created good alongside other entities, and above these entities, he alone enjoys the favor (grace) of being created in the image of God. Thus, the nature of man distances itself from the nature of all other created things. But, similarly to the other living creatures, the body of man conditions him to corruptibility and death (Rom 7:4), and in turn gives him no chance of assuming equality with God. In this vein, and in order to posses the chance of being in the abode of God, the soul and the spirit of man renders to him an opportunity of transcendence (cf. Heb 10: 39) after the body must have decayed and the soul raised, and there upon becomes powerful only in the presence of his creator (cf. 1 Cor 15 :35-44, here, St. Paul regards the soul as the spiritual body).

Is the Divine Grace necessary?

T

he soul has since been discovered in it the character of restlessness in the world; only will its rest be found in God, his creator (apologies to St. Augustine in his Confessions). St. Catherine of Siena confirms this by saying that “the soul is lifted by a very great and yearning desire for the honor of God…”(St. Catherine of Siena, On Divine Providence, published by Kegan Paul, Trubner and co. LTD, London, 1907). He is continuously in search of perfection which is God Himself. Since man is not created perfect, and “nature cannot become perfect without divine assistance”(Egbulefu, J., The Proposals of the Popes since the Second Vatican Council on the role of Universities towards the development of the African nations and peoples, Roma, 2011), but can only be made perfect by a Divine assistance, by God’s communication of himself; man requires the Divine grace in order to be perfect. In fact, “this self-communication of the son and of the Spirit of God…is called the Grace of God. It is the Grace of God that can lead created nature to perfection.”(Ibidem).

Yet, grace does not cancel or relegate nature,  neither does it destroy it, but perfects it. This implies that for grace to act, there must already be a natural entity on which it acts, and when this grace acts on this nature, it acts not to replace, not to destroy, but to make better till perfection is achieved. This perfection as we have seen is brought about by the action of the grace on the good nature, and indeed on the very good human nature towards lifting and uplifting the human nature “at the positive level of goodness, through the grace of informing…the formed but deformable human nature…, to…the comparative level of goodness…through the grace of reforming…the deformed informed creature…, to the relatively superlative degree of goodness, through the grace of transforming the reformed man…to the character of participating in the Goodness…of the creator, God, as in the only Goodness of the absolutely superlative degree.”(Egbulefu, J., On the union of the Christian Faith with Science and Technology {from 1999 onwards}, Roma, 2011.). Here, Prof. Egbulefu elucidates the work of the grace of God from informing man up to the transformation point where he dwells with his Creator, God.    

Does man have a part to play for the reception of the Grace?

G

race being a supernatural gratuitous gift of God implies that it is through the action of grace that comes into our lives as Christians; as those who have cleaned their house for the reception of God into our homes, that we get our propelling desire to see God face to face. He is at the door of our hearts knocking; he comes in if we open the door. It is true as Prof. Egbulefu continues to insist that blamelessness is the presupposition in the human nature for the reception of God into the human soul and spirit. (cf. also I Thes. 1 :23- 24). Now comes the question: How do we make our minds and hearts blameless? How do we clean up ourselves for this gift? In a seeming attempt to answer this, St. Bonaventure (1217-1274) postulates that there are three stages our minds cross while we travel towards God: the corporal, the spiritual, and the Divine.

Furthermore, according to this threefold progress, he stresses, our mind has three principle powers of sight [aspectus]. One is towards exterior corporals, according to that which is named the animal [animalitas] or the sensory [sensualitas]: the other within the self and in the self, according to that which is called the spirit; the third above the self, according to that which is called the mind. – From all of which it ought to arrange [disponere] itself to climb thoroughly [conscendendum] into God, to love [diligat] Him with a whole mind, and with a whole heart, and with a whole soul, in which consists the perfect observance of the Law and, at the same time with this, Christian Wisdom. (St. Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind towards God, translated from the Latin by Jose De Vinck, Ch. 1, Nos. 3 & 4, 1960).

In essence, the rejection of the devil and his pumps who moves around seeking for someone to devour (cf. 1 Pet 5: 8-9); not giving the devil an opportunity (Nolite locum dare diabolo; Eph 4: 27) and the love of God with our integral self (Cf. Deut 6: 5, Mtt. 22: 37, Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo et ex tota anima tua et ex toto fortitudine tua) is the approach towards which to gain the easy penetration of the grace of God in our lives. He has blessed and lavished upon us the riches of His grace (cf. Eph 1: 6-7). Now the more the mind is concerned about thinking and dealing with what is merely lower and human, the more it is separated from the experience in the intimacy of devotion of what is higher and heavenly, while the more fervently the memory, desire and intellect is withdrawn from what is below to what is above, the more perfect will be our prayer, and the purer our contemplation, since the two directions of our interest cannot both be perfect at the same time, being as different as light and darkness.

Conclusively then, even though we may think that our sins have increased to the extent of our doubting the abounding grace of God, we are to be reminded that the more our sins rise, the more God furnishes his Grace unto us (cf. Rom. 5: 20). If this Grace lives in us, we are no more in lack because he has made it clear that “my grace is sufficient for you” (Gratia mea tibi suffucit; 1 Cor 12:9). If we become aware as Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical, Mediator Dei says that “God cannot be honored worthily unless the mind and heart turn to him in quest of the perfect life” (Pope Pius XII, 1947, no.26), and as Christ instructs us to be perfect as our heavenly father is (cf. Mtt. 5: 48), then our quest for perfection and our search for God must be carried out with an utmost zeal, filled up with the love of God , who supplies His grace to us so as to enable us to scale through the difficulties we encounter on the race towards our heavenly race. His Grace is the energetic substance (e.g glucose) that provides us with vigor when we may have run shut of strength , lest we faint while struggling for this trophy; the beatific vision. Even if we faint out of our own foolishness, His Grace remains to revitalize us, and to push us forward towards reaching the goal.    

         EZEKOKA PETER ONYEKACHI, CCE