Meditation for June 9, The Unknown God

St. Paul found at Athens a temple whose fac;ade bore the words, To the Unknown God.

Is it not true that in a wholly different sense I could write of my dedication to the unknown God? Certainly not because I do not know the true God. But am I really acquainted with this God whom I know to be true? Do I know Him truly? Do I know Him thoroughly?

Sometimes when certain good people think of heaven, they begin to imagine that perhaps they will be bored there...it never dawns on them that it requires nothing less than an eternity to penetrate the fullness of God, without any possibility of exhaust­ing it.

In a similar way the uninitiated wonder how souls who meditate know what to do in God's presence. They are utterly unaware that the more a soul seeks to plunge itself into the abyss, which is the infinity of God, the more completely does it lose itself in that world of splendors. So multiple are its aspects! So numerous the questions it arouses! Why three Divine Persons? Why a God Incarnate? Why a suffering Redeemer? Truly what folly is the Cross! What a poem the Eucharist! What sweetness, Mary! What is the power of an act of charity, that it can redeem a whole life? A Christian is a tabernacle of the Most High, an essential element in the salvation of the world - and so the mysteries present themselves interminably.

Have I plumbed the depths of all that? Still I know noth­ing! I understand nothing! My God is an unknown God!

"My Lord, let me know you!" cried out St. Augustine. And I, Lord, what do I say? "Oh, let me know You more intimately and let each day increase my knowledge of You."
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)