God is in the Rain

Yesterday's class conversation was probably more intense to some of us than others and it made me, to some degree, a little uncomfortable. It was funny in the beginning, but I slowly realized it shouldn't have been. Before I get into my personal rant on what made me shift in my seat for pretty much the entire class time, I want to discuss something that we brushed over yesterday.

We read Hugh of St. Victor's writing on the matter of Judgment Day and the quality of the person and there are some things I disagree with. He says that while the good and the evil of heart will see the Son of God on judgment day, they will surely experience it differently: the good will see Him as they always had and the evil will see Him as He was when He came into the world (pg. 454). He will not appear as the kind and good-hearted Creator to His children which chose to disobey Him throughout their life (pg. 455). He will also appear as the Son of God and not God the Father, so again, only those who are "worthy" of entering heaven will see Him in His Glory which is connected to God. We also read about the resurrection of those who God will deem as righteous and deserving of Heaven and how their bodies will become in heaven (pg. 459). Regarding the first claim, I think Hugh of St. Victor is correct to some degree. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we know that no one can behold God's Being and anyone that does pretty much dies. Even when Gideon sees the Son of God freaks out and prays that he doesn't die and God has tell him to relax and he's good. So, yes we won't see God the Maker during the end of times because no one can possibly look at Him. He's too bright! Mortal humanity cannot bear the revelation of divine glory (Exodus 19:21, Exodus 33:20, Isaiah 6:5).

 So then who do we see? Apparently, according to Hugh of St. Victor, everyone will see Christ differently based on their souls and that's where I disagree. Never mind the fact that it doesn't say anything remotely pertaining to this in either of the Testaments…and I genuinely believe the Beatitude used to support this argument was misunderstood (pg. 454). It's a little far-fetched to say that Christ is referring to the end of times when he says "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." If you are pure (according to God and not according to yourself), then you will be able to God everywhere around you, from the people you meet on a daily basis to the natural phenomena occurring everyday. I refer to V for Vendetta (weird) to try and explain what I mean: after living through traumatic experiences, Evie stands with her hands raised toward the sky and whispers "God is in the rain." Now, you can take this as just another dramatic, cinematic moment in a movie that surprisingly fits today's events, or you can learn to understand what she meant, and try to comprehend her experiences before and after this climactic moment. You can try to see how everyone goes through many rainy periods in their lives but still finds God in them, before them, and certainly in my experiences, after them and somehow they remain pure in heart and give thanks to Him or you can just brush it off and take it as some random line in a movie that we (nerds) love to quote on the 5th of November every year. Nothing to do with being able to behold the Son of Man literally.

Let's move on. Matthew 24:30 says "then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Christ will come with His sign, the cross, which is the standard for Christ's impending judgement. His first coming was very much humble and mortal but His second will be powerful and glorious. Everyone will see Him in His power and glory as He is with relation to His Father. Everyone will be able to look on as the Trinity makes itself visible: Cloud as Holy Spirit, Son and His Sign, and through the Son and the Cross, the Father. How would people know how they were judged? Even the thief to the right who spent his entire life in sin, repented in the end. I'm not sure if I'm putting it in words correctly but I think saying the evil will not see God's glory makes it seem like the evil will know their judgement and the place they're going to before the judgement takes place. We are not judges, even for ourselves. So everyone will see Him as He is meant to be seen. Yes I can spend my entire life doing the worst imaginable acts but I still don't know where I am going. I know the priests and the Holy books tell me where I'll probably end up but I still don't know. Because God is merciful and kind. His anger lasts a minute but His mercy lasts a lifetime, and a lifetime can be in the moment when someone sees Him on Judgement day and repents. I'm not saying that's what anyone should do but I'm just saying that by Hugh saying we'll see him differently makes it seem that first, he is sort of judging people/readers when he's saying this and second, the words of the Bible mean nothing. Christ Himself said this, and revealed it prophets like Daniel and His disciples that everyone will see the Son of God as He is.

Then there is the deformity part which I also disagree with. Like it was pointed out yesterday, why does deformity have to be "corrected" in heaven? And the answer is, it isn't. John the Beloved said in his Revelation that heaven is a place where there is no more suffering, or crying, or hunger or thirst, and I think this could be used here to explain our heavenly bodies. I think if there is a deformity that caused someone to be in pain or cause some setbacks to the individual, it will be corrected physically in the sense that it won't hurt this person any longer in heaven, not physically as in their muscles or bones or the length of whatever it was that caused them pain will be corrected. God doesn't care about any of this. He literally touched lepers and a bleeding woman and couldn't care less about their deformities. So to say that there is an ideal which will applied to everyone is a little hurtful. Our human minds tell most of us, even if we don't want admit this, that yes these deformities will be corrected based on our ideals of what a human should look like. But that's probably as far away from how God thinks as it could possibly get (not that I think I know what God thinks…I don't).

Another reading we were meant to do for yesterday was Matthew 25, and the beginning of this chapter speaks of the wise and foolish virgins. I bring this up because this might be a short answer to the intense conversation yesterday. There were many questions and answers thrown out that I frankly found no purpose for. We started class yesterday by saying that no one knows when Judgement day is but we should prepare and that's the point of this parable. Be as prepared as you can get and God will definitely take that into account. Just try. Even if you don't attain as many virtues as someone else, at least you tried. You were nice to people, you minded your own business and you didn't judge anyone. Again with that word. It sounds a bit old and cliché, but have mercy on others so one day, God will have mercy on you. As simple as that!

Lastly, someone said something that I disagree with. Towards the end of the class, when we were talking about fear and the fear of God and the fear of Judgement Day, it was said that we never actually stop fearing God. I don't know how this person was using it but I would like to offer my definition. It was also said that we should never think of ourselves as righteous because as Christ said in Matthew 20:16, "the last will be first and the first will be last." I think that, yes, we should fear God out of love but not in the sense that we are afraid of what He will do to us I also think that, yes, should never think of ourselves as righteous but we should try and reach a point in our spiritual lives when we have cleared our conscience and continue to love and fear God and count on Him being merciful. And this is where it gets personal and don't read ahead if you don't want to. A bit of a warning though, I do mention death and medical circumstances so proceed with caution. Last year, I was with my dad in the last two weeks of his life before he passed away. He had multiple types of cancer for a year so we knew what was coming. I mention this because I have never and probably will never see someone as trusting and hopeful as him, even when he knew what was going to happen. I mean this in the literal sense because he told me a week prior that he would die on the 4th of November and he did. I can easily write about this without feeling uncomfortable because I asked him numerous times if he was afraid and he could only smile and say "nope why would I be? I trust God's decision and I've made my peace with all of you." He was in and out of sleep and I'm not sure he knew what was happening even but whenever family came and visited and asked him how he was feeling, he'd just raise his hands and kiss both of them. I'm not sure if this has the same cultural meaning in the U.S. but in Egypt, it means 'thank God.' I write about this because I think even in the worst of times, we still shouldn't fear God or His judgement. We should just trust that He knows what's best and at the same time, we should feel comfortable in our own relationship with Him because all this relationship is based on is trust and love. I apologize if I made anyone uncomfortable, but I wanted to share this in case it gives hope to anyone.

Finally, Mel Gibson announced that he's making "Passion of the Christ: Resurrection" so be on the look out for that. Watch his interview with Stephen Colbert it was entertaining. And as he said, "we know how this story begins," but not how it ends. It was nice arguing and conversing with y'all this quarter and good luck during finals.

MT

Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments, trans. Deferrari, book II, parts XVII-XVIII (“On the End of the World,” “On the State of the Future Life”), pp. 451-76.