Glory, jest and riddle of the world

July 9, 2006 -- 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Bishop Robert Morneau

	Bishop Robert Morneau
	Questions for reflection: 1. What is your philosophy of the human person? 2. How has God called you to your prophetic role? 3. Does God love every inch of who we are?

John Macquarrie's excellent study of the human person - In Search of Humanity: A Theological and Philosophical Approach - offers this reflection from Alexander Pope regarding the identity of the human person: "Created half to rise, and half to fall; / Great Lord of all things, yet prey to all; / Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: / The glory, jest and riddle of the world!"

I wonder if Ezekiel ever felt that he was the "glory, jest and riddle of the world." Here he is going about his business when suddenly the spirit of God enters his life and everything changes. God gives him the commission of going to the Israelites and challenging them to reform because they have turned away from God's ways. Ezekiel has to face a people who are obstinate and call them to repentance. Did Ezekiel feel the glory and power of God? Did Ezekiel feel himself to be a jest and riddle to the world and the Israelites?

I wonder if St. Paul experienced being a creature who was "created half to rise, and half to fall?" Two things we hear about him in today's reading. One (the half to rise) is his elation and joy, the cause of which was the abundance of the revelations given to him. His inner experience of God's grace was overwhelming. Yet, the other thing we hear of Paul (the half to fall) is the thorn in the flesh, that factor that prevented Paul from becoming too elated. Contemporary psychology might label this description as one of a person suffering from bipolar illness but Paul saw these two halves of his life as the workings of grace. Paul's strengths and weaknesses were kept in balance so that God's grace might remain operative.

I wonder if Jesus, our Savior and Redeemer, who is the great Lord of all things and the sole judge of truth, tasted deeply the riddle of the world. No, not wonder, He knew the glory of His Father's power and tasted deeply the "jest" of the cross. Jesus plunged deep down into the human condition and took our humanity back with Him into His risen life. We have a God who knows us from the inside and as the poet Anne Porter writes: "There's not a single inch / Of our whole body / That the Lord does not love" (cf. the poem "Susanna" - Anne Porter's Living Things: Collected Poems, p. 50).

Glory, jest and riddle! All aspects of our human condition. Ezekiel, Paul, and Jesus walked this earth as pilgrims and searchers. They knew life's joys and sorrows, its clarities and confusions, its power and weaknesses. But at the center of their existence was the mystery of a God who sent His only Son to help us deal with riddle of the world.

These prophets offer us hope that God's reign might govern our individual minds and hearts as well as that of countries and nations. It is hope based on faith and the conviction that God's redeeming love is always available.

William James, the great American philosopher, reminds us in no uncertain terms: "We have no right to speak of human crocodiles and boa-constrictors as fixedly incurable beings. We know not the complexities of personality, the smoldering emotional fires, the other facets of the character-polyhedron, the resources of the subliminal regions."

It is in context that we are all the "glory, jest and riddle of the world." We need, therefore, to hold hands as we journey together towards God's kingdom.

(Bp. Morneau is the auxiliary bishop of the Green Bay Diocese and pastor of Resurrection Parish in Allouez.)