When things are not as they seem

From Father Stephen at Glory to God for All Things [boldface mine]:

. . . At the pace we travel, rushing about, there is very little that we actually see – or that we see for more than a blur. The Scriptures tell us that the pure in heart are blessed for they shall see God. We are not the pure in heart – nor is our heart slow enough to even begin the process of becoming pure.

Traveling at the speed of modernity – blinded by the flicker of screens that constantly interpret our world – we must be more and more certain that whatever things may seem to us they surely are otherwise. Our hearts are far from pure and thus we see no God and in our rush to some other vision we are redefining reality into no reality at all.

The call of the Church, of the Gospel, is a call to repentance. But that call is a very slow call. Repentance, even in the case of “quick cases” like the Apostle Paul are deceptive in their speed. His repentance had long been preceded by “goads” from God. Saul had been wrestling with God long before he met a blinding light. And he continued in his slow change for years to come, even enduring “buffeting” from Satan for the sake of his salvation.

There is a slowness that belongs naturally to children – a timeless quality to their wonder – when not interrupted by new strange sights and sounds that do not actually belong to the world. There is a slowness that can see angels.

The same speed of life beckons to us all: “Be still and know that I am God.” It is a stillness that may require a lifetime for in that stillness can be found the very purity for which our hearts were created.

Read it all.