The Cloak and the Parchments. Frank P. Spinella

for good fortune, being blessed with good health . . .”

      As I spoke, Timothy closed his eyes and shook his head, two fingers on his temple, putting himself in the wrong to ease my difficulty. “No, no, that is not my question—or rather, I’ve asked the question too broadly. These feelings you describe are accidental qualities that may perhaps be generated from any number of sources. What I meant to ask is, can you describe the unique experience of God’s love, in terms of His presence in your life? How do you know it is God, it is His love, that you feel when you say you feel it?”

      Gathering myself, I paused for a reflective moment, and responded. “There are times—rare moments, to be sure—when I have sensed the presence of a power beyond my comprehension, when I have felt somehow connected to something so much greater than myself that I can only stand in awe. The feeling might be brought on by just about anything, from a beautiful vista to the funeral of a loved one. At those times, I have been suddenly overwhelmed by a peace, a serenity that cannot be adequately described. Inevitably the feeling wanes and quickly leaves, becoming an exquisite yet fading memory, leaving behind a hope, even a longing, for the next encounter. It can scarcely be put into words. Are those the words you ask me for now, Timothy?”

      “Yes! That is it precisely! Do you understand such experiences as being given a brief taste of union with God?”

      “I suppose that is one way to put it, although ‘union’ may be putting it a bit strongly.”

      “Not too strongly at all, Mark. You hesitate to express this feeling in terms of union with the Almighty because you have been imbued in the Jewish view of God as so supreme, so fundamentally different and other than created, sinful man that it is blasphemous even to hint at the possibility of a union with God.”

      “No doubt I am a product of my culture; you must forgive me!”

      “I do. Yet I am convinced that that union is exactly what the experience of God’s love is about.”

      “How do you mean?”

      “I mean no more than that the goal of love is always union with its object.”

      “Explain.”

      “Let us analogize to love on a human plane, for example in a marriage. Marriage is the undertaking of a way of life in which two people commit to each other, foregoing other liaisons, and forging a union to fulfill each other’s emotional, physical, and social needs as best as they can—and in this way forming a spiritual bond; is that not so?”

      “Certainly.”

      “If I ‘love’ my wife, do I not then seek union with her, emotionally and physically; do I not seek to form that spiritual bond, to become a ‘unit’ not only in social and economic terms but in spiritual terms?”

      “Yes.”

      “For us to love God, and for God to love us, must similarly entail the forging of such a union; do you not agree?”

      “I suppose I must agree, but I still see union with God as a very different thing.”

      “Tell me how.”

      “In a marriage I see, hear and touch my mate—indeed, I can be completely physically intimate with her—and this reinforces the experience of spiritual union. In a relationship with God, the physical senses do not translate the experience of union. If it cannot be sensed, I do not see how something can be experienced.”

      “Yet you have just described for me those fleeting, rapturous moments when you have become awestruck by the power of a presence beyond yourself; is that not an experience of spiritual union akin to, if not on a level beyond, what is experienced in marriage?”

      “That is so.”

      “Then the physical senses cannot be strictly necessary to the experience of a spiritual union, can they?”

      “I suppose not.”

      “And how does one come to achieve spiritual union with a spouse? Is it not through the way of life embodied in the marriage, a longstanding appreciation of the mutual commitment, sharing and sacrifice made by the partners to the union over an extended period of time?”

      “I am sure you are correct.”

      “My belief is that our experience of union with God comes about in much the same way. Over time, an appreciation of the love, commitment and sacrifice of God-become-man in the person of our Lord simply translates into the experience of spiritual union as a living reality.”

      “But such love seems so one-sided,” I objected, “not at all as in a marriage.”

      “Ah, Mark, but it is still a love that calls for a response! We have, after all, been commanded to love God with our whole heart, mind and soul.”

      “True; but is such love even possible for any human being?”

      “If it is not, then we have not improved much on our Jewish roots; we will still have been given a law which cannot be perfectly kept! No, Mark, if Jesus came to perfect the Law, this commandment must be more than a goal to strive toward but ultimately fall short of. He must have given us the tools to accomplish the task, or more precisely—for ‘tools’ improperly suggests that reaching the goal is something that we can accomplish through our own efforts—He must have provided us with a way of experiencing that kind of perfect love; do you not agree?”

      “I do. But what is that way, Timothy?”

      “I believe it is to be found in a proper understanding of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus as God-become-man. To understand the meaning of those events, and to appropriate their meaning into a present consciousness of union with God, we must first see Jesus as the embodiment of God’s relationship to man, or more generally, of God’s relationship to creation.”

      “Explain.”

      “A while ago, we were speaking of your religious and cultural bias against any view of God forging a spiritual union with mankind; do you recall?”

      “Yes.”

      “Your notion that God and man are so fundamentally distinct as to preclude any possibility of spiritual union; is this not based on your view of God as sinless and mankind as sinful?”

      “It is.”