EASTER SUNDAY, VII
Jesus’ Theory of Relativity
Recall that Easter is a seven week, fifty day, celebration of Christ’s Victory for all of us over sin and death. Always on the 7th Sunday of Easter, we hear excerpts of the Prayer that Jesus offered to God the Father at the conclusion of the Last Supper, as it is recorded for us in the Fourth Gospel, viz., John 17. Since our biblical tradition tells us that prayers are always heard, there is no doubt for believers that Jesus’ Prayer has already been answered. Even now, but not yet!!
Jesus salutes and praises God for what God does in Christ Jesus. He speaks of the Unity that is between the Father and Himself as well as the Unity between Himself and the group at the Last Supper. But, what about us? We are included as well because the Holy Spirit continues to make Christ Jesus’ Presence active in our lives. We live in the Christ Quantum, Christ’s Vibrational Field, the Holy Spirit. The last part of the Prayer bringing us now into the Divine Orbit of the Holy Trinity. It is this portion of the prayer that we hear this weekend.
Catholics believe that our Trinitarian God is both the God of Life and the God of Love. God creates all that is and God unites all that is. Then, too, God does so simultaneously.
How can we ever make sense of it? All language about God is inadequate. Metaphors help. God is like a…
However, perhaps we can look to other ways of understanding how God operates in the universe. The man honored as the “Greatest Man of the Twentieth Century”, Albert Einstein, might be able to assist here. A new biography of Einstein has just appeared and this aspect of his contribution might not be a part of it.
Einstein is famous for his theory of relativity. He teaches that matter and energy and space and time, all exist in relationship to one another. Even our perception of this relativity affects reality itself. Everything in reality is related and everything belongs. We might not see it as such, but Einstein insists that it is so.
In his reflection on reality, as mediated through his theory of relativity, Einstein made some beautiful observations. He hoped that, someday, people would uncover the origin of the Universe. He said, ”Whatever causes the Universe will be seen as Something that is beautiful and simple.” He said, in another place, ”All reality is a miracle or nothing is a miracle.” He also stated sadly, after World War II, Humanity had learned how to crack the atom, but we have not learned how to get along with each other.”
50 years ago, Einstein and British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, published the “Einstein-Russell Manifesto”. Popes, particularly Blessed John XXIII, assented to it in statements that they made as the Successors of St Peter. We have to learn how to get along with each other. The stakes have become too high for humanity to dabble with traditional means of conflict resolution. They said boldly, “We have to learn to think in a new way…. Remember our common humanity and forget all the rest.” Einstein had applied his theory of relativity to human living.
The Prayer of Jesus this weekend is about the same thing. Jesus tells us that He came that we might have life and have it to the fullest. He prays that we see that even now, we are already united with God the Father in Christ and in the Paraclete-Spirit. It is the Paraclete-Spirit awakening us to the reality as it is and we didn’t know! In Christ Jesus when we love one another as He has loved us (sacrificially and selflessly), we believe the God of Life is the God of Love, the Father of Jesus and of all reality.
It is always Easter when we believe in Jesus. His theory of Relativity is always in effect. In His Spirit, each day, let us try to live accordingly. 052007AD jfq
