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25

  Throughout this book we have constantly spoken of mystery and claimed that mystery is at the heart and centre of each life, of all life. The word ‘mystery’ is used not to suggest a puzzle which baffles the mind but to suggest wonder and beauty which touch the heart and leave us searching for words to describe our wonder and joy. This is so because mystery has to do with meaning, the deeper meaning of everything. I used to think that ‘mystery’ as used in religious vocabulary meant obscurity and concealment of meaning or, worse still, absence of meaning. It suggested that a certain part of reality, a certain truth, could not be explained or understood by my intellect and therefore could not be experienced by me. This seemed to say that the only path to experience, to knowing, is the intellect. Truly, our intellect is a beautiful light on life’s path, a way of knowing, but it is not the only way, not even the most satisfying or fulfilling way. Scripture speaks of knowing with the heart. ‘Everyone who loves, knows God’ (1 John 4:7). Mystery invites the intellect to humility, to lose itself in wonder, praise and joy. We humbly accept the surrounding presence of something infinitely greater and more beautiful than our own small self. Our true response to this humble letting-go is not to feel small or threatened but to feel loved, accepted and protected. This inspires joy, a joy akin to that experienced by those early Christians to whom St. Peter was writing, ‘a joy so glorious that it cannot be described’ (1 Peter 1:8).

  The old pilgrim in the story related in the last chapter was in touch with mystery. It was the source of his strength to persevere in his climb up the mountain to the holy place. Another word for this mystery is God. Another word for God is love. We exist now because or it. The mystery deepens when we realise that ‘now’ is the only time word we can apply to God. He is outside of our time sequence. His name is ‘I am’, and now is the only time he knows. This means that in some mysterious way we have always been in the mind and heart of God, or, as Julian of Norwich puts it in her own beautiful way, ‘God never began to love us.’ He has always loved us. We exist now because of his love and are sustained each moment by it. We are that song and God is the singer. God is the tree and we are the branch.

  The mystery is ‘touched’, ‘seen’, ‘known’ by the heart rather than by the reason. As the old pilgrim said, his heart had arrived first at the holy place. St. John, as we have seen, speaks of this kind of knowing. ‘Everyone who loves, knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God’ (1 John 4:7-8). Mystery deals with meaning and meaning does not lie on the surface of life. It is the substance underlying the shadow, it is the reality underlying the appearances. The appearances are seen and noticed and we think, discuss and reason about them, but reality is hidden. Reason takes us to the door leading into the garden of reality, of wonder. The heart enters and knows and our whole being rejoices while reason and all our faculties share the joy.

  Here is a verse from an old folk hymn:

'Tell me why you are smiling my son.
Is there a secret you can tell everyone?
Do you know more than men that are wise?
Can you see what’s beyond life’s disguise
through your loving eyes?'

The boy in the song is smiling. This young boy shares the same experience as the old pilgrim. He is in touch with the mystery, the reality hiding under ‘life’s disguise’. The boy can see past the disguises, he can see the underlying reality because he looks at the world ‘through loving eyes’. Love pierces all disguises and sees the beauty underneath and recognises and knows God. When you see through loving eyes and know that the ultimate sustaining reality is love, then you can smile and walk in total trust as Jesus did.

  In the song it is a young boy who knows the secret. It should not surprise us that a young boy ‘knows more than men that are wise’. Jesus would not be surprised by this. He rejoiced that the inner secret of his Father’s being, which is love, has been made known to simple people. ‘I bless you, Father, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children’ (Luke 10:21). And again he said, ‘I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see and never saw it; to hear what you hear and never heard it’ (Luke 10:24).

  The song asks, ‘Why are you smiling, my son?’ He smiles because he knows a great secret. The first Son to enter the depths of the mystery and know the secret of God’s love was Jesus the Beloved Son. Because he knew the secret, he was able to look at life with loving eyes. He could walk in love and joyful trust. He looked with such clear, loving eyes that he could see past all the disguises to the reality underneath. The flowers, the birds, the clouds, the soil, the weeds in the field of wheat, the sheep, the oxen ploughing, the fisherman casting his net, the women making bread, the vine, the spring of water, the children playing the market-place, the rabbi poring over books of knowledge new and old – all these spoke to him, even sang to him – of a reality greater than themselves, of a beauty beyond imagining, of a protecting, nourishing love sustaining all life.

  But above all did this Beloved Son look at people with loving eyes. He was a master at seeing through people’s disguises. And what a variety of masks and disguises he encountered. People were disguised as thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, demoniacs, extortioners, atheists. But this man of love was never deceived. He saw the unique beauty and wonder of each person hiding under the mask. He was blind to the labels and price tags we attach to each other. With his loving eyes he could always read the Maker’s name and see the infinite value of each person. He wants to open our eyes so that we may see with his loving eyes. He wants us to see each other with a love that will look past all labels, all categories, all disguises, to the wonder and beauty of God’s image in each person.

  The most baffling disguise worn by reality is suffering. It is the most difficult and disturbing mask worn by the mystery, by love. When life dresses up as death, our faith vision weakens and we can lose sight of beauty and of love. Calvary is God’s most difficult hiding-place. But our Saviour’s loving eyesight was so strong, he could look at suffering and find his Father there and not lose trust. He could find love under the mask of Calvary and so, even then, he did not stop loving. He forgives those who nail him. He promises the thief he will enter paradise that day. He trusts that his Father is waiting to receive his spirit. He did not expect to fall into the arms of death, but into his Father’s arms.

  This Father had sent him to share the secret with us: that love is at the centre. The secret is not simply information or knowledge, it is power. When our eyes are opened to find God mysteriously present in suffering and death, we are empowered to follow where Jesus went, to talk with him through suffering all the way to glory. The chorus of the folk hymn quoted above goes like this:

'And if you take my hand, my son,
All will be well
When the day is done.'

  Again we apply these words to the first-born Son, Jesus. He took his Father’s hand and walked in trust right to the end of the day. It was a long hard day, that Friday on Calvary. But his trust was vindicated and all was well when the day was done. This Son comes to share his victory with us. He offers us his hand on our journey. In knowing him and in walking with him we experience the power of his love and, hopefully, at times taste a joy so glorious that it cannot be described.

AMDG

© Father Robert Kelly SJ

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