This 1970 Paulist Press little book is rich in content. (Selling for 75 cents at its publication, it is listed today at times for as much as $1050.00.)
Trinity Sunday is a good day to share a bit of Ochs’ reflection on God as present “in the things that are His will.” As in any person-to-person interactions, God’s will is a self-revelation that asks something of the receiver:
One only gives oneself when one puts oneself where one can be accepted or rejected.
The paradigmatic instance of this is the declaration of love. It is remarkable that we call it a declaration, in that it asks for a return. Bur calling it a declaration, instead of a request for a return of love, does have a logic to it which underscores the sheer powerlessness of the declaration. In a sense, all the lover can do is declare his request. A declaration of love is therefore more than a declaration; it is a demand. And yet, in a real sense it remains only a declaration, because one does not dispose over the response of the other.
God’s revelation, even of his will, is more than that, and yet only that.
This reminds me powerfully of words I heard from the voice of the wonderful lover and disciple of Jesus, Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche Communities (http://www.larcheusa.org/who-we-are/larche-international-2/). Vanier was interviewed in this week’s edition of On Being (http://www.onbeing.org). Asked what his vision of Jesus is now in his (Vanier’s) old age (he was 79 when interviewed and is now 86 years old), his first response was to reflect on the radical “vulnerability of God.” God puts himself before us asking to be loved; not causing it, not insisting on it, but as a supplicant. Just as we do when we too, all our lives in ways big and small, quiet or shouting, ask to be loved.
A native of the North Shore of Boston, I currently live in Worcester County, Massachusetts. I worked at Boston College as the Acting Director of The Church in the 21st Century Center until August, 2010 and served until November 2016 as Canon for Formation, and Dean of the George Mercer Jr. School of Theology of the Diocese of Long Island. I was happy to serve as Rector at the Church of Saint Anselm of Canterbury in Shoreham, New York from late 2016 to early 2020. I began service as Rector of The Church of Saint Matthew in the city of Worcester on the first day of the fateful month of 2020.
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Believe it. 