Happy New Year, everyone! As we begin the new calendar year, let’s start off with four important and fun theological questions:
1) Christianity is about becoming a good person—true or false? [False. By the way, we’ll explain the answers later on.]
2) If God were to ask, ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ a good answer would be: ‘Because I’m a good person.’—yes or no? [No]
3) Being Christian is the result of: a) a theological idea; b) an encounter with a person; c) an ethical choice. [B]
4) Please complete this sentence: It is not humanity who is in search of God, but God… [Who is in search of humanity.]
All these questions are about who’s the focus of our lives. Is it God or we? Are we the main actors this year or is it God? Is the focus of this year to love God or become a better person?
The First Reading is about God’s blessing, which is why the Church selects it as the First Reading every January 1: “The Lord spoke to Moses… Thus you shall bless the children of Israel… The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. So they shall put my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them” (Num 6:22-27). Let’s make two points:
1) That last sentence gives us a clue as to what’s going on: God wants His name to be on us. What does this mean? It has to do with intimacy: To know God’s name means we’re close to Him. For example, if we were to go to work or school and ask people, ‘What’s God’s name?’ they might say, ‘God?’ That’s not bad, but that’s not really His name, that’s His essence. We might correctly answer, ‘Father,’ or, ‘Jesus,’ or, ‘Holy Spirit.’ So, right away, we have a gift: Knowing God’s name means we can be closer to Him. Of course, we want to share this with others.
But, in the Old Testament, God actually told Moses that His name was, ‘I AM WHO AM,’ or in Hebrew, YHWH. So, when we look at the Reading again, every time the word ‘Lord’ is written, in the original Hebrew, it says, ‘YHWH.’
The Jewish people had such a respect for this name that they never said it out loud. Instead, they just said, ‘Lord.’ At a certain point in their history, the high priest would say this blessing once a year and actually pronounce this name and the people would fall prostrate as they received it.
So, at the beginning of this year, God’s name, that is, His blessing, goes with us. It’s like being a hockey player and just joining the Montreal Canadiens: When you wear that jersey, you’re wearing a legacy of winning. So, this is a good start: While we might not have our act together this year, God’s going to do His part, which means there’s purpose, hope, and help coming our way.
2) In the blessing, ‘face’ and ‘countenance’ are the same word here in the original Hebrew. I heard that the English translation translated them differently for variety. Anyway, why is it important that God’s face shine upon us? Because of intimacy! Have you ever noticed: When you’re in love with a person, you look at pictures of them a lot? When we’re away from family and friends for a long time, it’s more meaningful to do a video call rather than a phone call.
Some years ago I heard about a psychological idea called collecting,from a counselor named Ian Butler. He said that, when we’re children, we notice that our parents’ faces light up when they see us: the eyes go big, there’s a big smile, warm tone, and sometimes a touch. This is why it’s distracting with kids at Mass, because we like looking at them and they like looking at us. Friends and couples do this, too, but it dies down after time; it doesn’t collect the heart. When this shining of the face dies down, children think: ‘What’s wrong? I’ve arrived and people aren’t delighting; the rock star is here and people aren’t cheering.’
The beautiful truth is that God always wants to look at us. Most of the time, He’s smiling. Even when He’s angry, His face is full of love. When we ask that God’s face shine on us, we pray that we recognize His loving face has big eyes, a big smile, and warmth in His voice.
This is the face that the human heart seeks! 15 years ago, Pope Benedict XVI preached on Psalm 45:12: “The richest of the people shall seek your smile,” meaning Mary’s smile, but I think that’s a loose translation, where ‘smile’ should be ‘face.’ I haven’t been able to find why he translated it like that. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful meditation: “Christians have always sought the smile of Our Lady… This smile of Mary is for all; but it is directed quite particularly to those who suffer, so that they can find comfort… This smile, a true reflection of God’s tenderness, is the source of an invincible hope… Turn towards Mary! … To seek this smile, is first of all to have grasped the gratuitousness of love; it is also to be able to elicit this smile through our efforts to live according to the word of her Beloved Son, just as a child seeks to elicit its mother’s smile by doing what pleases her… Mary entrusts her smile to you… May you carry her smile to everyone!”.
So, let’s wrap up. Today, there is no action item, except knowing and enjoying the fact that God loves us first. On Sunday, we’ll talk about how to respond.
And to give the correct answers to the four questions we asked at the beginning:
1) Christianity definitely involves becoming a good person, but it’s not about becoming a good person. It’s about God loving us. It’s relationship first, and morality second. I hope we become a better person this year, but the main thing is our relationship with God.
2) If God were to ask, ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ please say, ‘Because Jesus died and rose for me.’ Keeping the commandments is very important, and mortal sin separates us from God, but there’s only one Person Who can bring us to heaven and it’s not we. It’s Christ.
3) Being Christian is the result of an encounter with a Person. Rules and philosophy are necessary, but being Christian is about an encounter.
4) Christianity is about God Who is in search of us—that’s its distinguishing mark. Every religion searches for God, but the Bible reveals that God’s been searching for us. We seek His face, and He seeks our faces and smiles down on us.