Mystery in Relationship with Us

"The Most Holy Trinity is relationship.
Grace is relationship.
The Church is relationship.
Priesthood is relationship. 
Consecrated Life is relationship. 
Marriage and Family Life is relationship. 
Education is relationship. 
Formation is relationship." 


The Sign
I  first saw the above quotation hanging on a wall in the administration building of Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut. The wall-hanging was meant to embody the "raison d'etre" of the place, the reason why the seminary exists, its goal, purpose, rationale, philosophy, theology, spirituality, methodology, and anything else that could be said about an institution whose purpose is to train men for the priesthood. I read it through the first time, simply because it was something to do as I was  waiting for 10:00 am to arrive so my meeting would begin. Then I read it a second time, more slowly and attentively, because the first reading had started working on me, working in me, waking me up to ramifications and implications. So I sat down and thought about it a bit, until I got distracted by people passing by and nodding a greeting to me.  Next the meeting took place, and an hour or so later, I drove back home, forgetting about the sign till it sprang up in my mind later in the afternoon. I knew I wanted a copy, and the friend I had met with soon emailed it to me. It has been the basis for reflection ever since.

What is it a sign of?
In general, of our involvement with Mystery, of Mystery's involvement with us,  as well as the Mystery of our involvement with each other. How Mystery sustains us, connects us, interrelates us, moves us, inspires us, works in us, purifies us, teaches us,  helps us grow, etc. It is a sign of the coherence and meaning all things have because of Mystery, and of how that meaningful coherence would be unrecognized and unexpressed except through the unique creature that each one of us human beings is,  and how even through us Mystery remains always greater than whatever meaningful coherence we get a glimpse of.

Why is everything reduced to "relationship" in the quotation?
"Reduced" is the wrong verb to use.  It would be better to say "open to". Relationship is not reductive nor limited in meaning even though our understanding of relationship  is.  For example,"reduction" would be the right term to use in talking about relationship if we make the mistake of thinking our intelligence is the measure of relationship. This would be an example of rationalism, a misuse of reason that limits its reach.

 Relationship is so open,  elastic and expansive that it unites God and all of creation, heaven and earth, time and eternity. For us, for God, for all creation, to be is to be with. Relationship is the heart of everything. It pertains to Father, Son and Holy Spirit; to Creator and creature; to time and eternity; to matter and spirit; to the Sacraments that make us one with God and one another in Christ; to family life and consecrated life; to any and everything that is. The initiative of relationship come from  Mystery, as well as the grace and freedom in us to say "yes" to the initiative. One of the marvels of relationship with God is we have the freedom to say yes or no to it.

Mystery is always in right relationship with us. It would be impossible for Mystery not to be in right relationship with us, since our very being depends upon it. From our side,  relationship with Mystery can go wrong in an infinite number of  ways, while there is only one way of it being right. How can that be? Can Mystery be in right relationship with us even while we are in wrong relationship with It? How is it possible for us to be in wrong relationship with It? By finding ways to say "no" while Mystery mercifully continues to say "yes".


An old Scholastic adage helps me to understand relationship  a bit:"Receptum in recipiente segundum modum recipientis,"which in English comes across as: What is received (the receptum) is in the receiver (in recipiente) according to the mode of the receiver (segundum modum recipientis). What we have of Mystery in us depends on our capability of receiving It. That capability is built into us, and is itself received, as is our very being.  In a sense that capability is our whole being as well as a part of our being. I didn't start myself up or bring myself into being. My existence was given me, and is given me at present as well. My being and everything in it is constituted by my relationship with Mystery. Even that, however,  is an inadequate way of expressing the way things are.

Why? It is true, isn't it? 
Yes. But it is "more" truth is than I am able to intuit, consciously experience, or fully comprehend.  Why? Because I am not the measure of Mystery. Can a painting comprehend the painter, a symphony its composer, or a statue its sculptor?  No. Each is an expression of its maker, but there is more to the maker than a particular expression. No creature can ever be the measure of the Creator. As creatures, we can only be something of an image and likeness, since that is what is given us to be. Yet Christ is both the painter and he  who jumps into his painting, the author who becomes a character in his book, the potter who becomes clay he molds. Relationship with Mystery is present, yet inexplicable, unforeseen and unforeseeable, unfathomable in its gratuitousness..
 Since it is my nature to be created, at every moment of my being I have to be held in being by Mystery. I am not self sustaining. If I were, I would not be a creature, one whose being is out of nothingness and who has no ground of being except Mystery. At root, I am only because Mystery is. The question for me is not Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be", since I inescapably am. Rather, the question is how I choose to be.