What we aren't always aware of

When I was young, through 4th grade, I grew up in Chicago (actually Lansing). I had places that I loved - the Lincoln Park and Brookfield Zoos, the Planetarium. There was a neat outlet mall that you had to drive over a quarry to get to - I know I always liked going there. And then we moved away in 1987.

In 2000 I went to the Seminary in Fort Wayne, and as such got to go drive to Chicago - and I realized, I didn't really know how to get much of anywhere. I knew my Grandpa's house, I could find the old apartment - but I couldn't have told you how to get to the Zoo, or the Planetarium - I don't even know the name of that other mall. Why? Because I wasn't always aware when I was young - I didn't always see things around me, and so I didn't have that mental map of the place.

I would contend that we are not always aware of what actually is. So often we don't see the whole of reality, but rather are focused in on our own small, specific place. I am reminded of this whenever I think of the Communion liturgy.

"Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name, evermore praising Thee and saying:"
"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory; Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He, Blessed is He, Blessed is He who commeth in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest."

My friend pointed out that today would have been his sister's Anna's 30th birthday. She passed away after a long struggle with cancer last year. The thing is, it really is her birthday, it is the anniversary of her birth - it's just that we don't have the celebrations we would prefer to have amongst ourselves. But what I see, what I remember, what I get a glimpse of now and even participate in for a brief moment myself (I am looking forward to Sunday), is that she is at a much better, much better celebration right now than any party we could have thrown her here.

Life would be easier if we saw this truth, this reality all the time. There will come a day when we will.

Hear part of what was read at Anna's wedding - "Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the Perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:8-12

All thanks be to God that He knows His own daughter Anna by the gift of Baptism, and that she now sees Him face to face.