Seeing the Invisible God

Don’t we all long to see God? Yet, so much of the time, He remains largely invisible to us. How does He reveal Himself in our day-to-day lives?
When we want to see someone we can’t actually meet, such as a loved one who moved far away, we often keep pictures—images—in our homes. Now we have the added benefits of options like Skype or Face Time, so we can virtually meet with those we long to see. Yet, these are not novel ideas: God thought of them first! And He uses them daily to touch each one of us, even when we feel He is most invisible.
First, God created the human person in His own image and likeness. As a skillful artist may paint a beautiful self-portrait, so God created each human person to reflect Himself. Because God is pure spirit and the human person is body and soul, man mainly reflected God in his created soul. And then man fell.
Rather than drawing farther away, God wished to unite us closer to Him. God sent His Son in human flesh to be one of us. Now, no human person is ever the same. Human Nature, body and soul, has been raised with Christ because the Divine Nature has fused with our fallen nature. Man is no longer merely the image of God in his soul alone: he is now the living image of God in his whole person, soul and body.
God wants to be with us in ways perceptible to us both spiritually and sensually, as He is most especially present in the Blessed Sacrament. But He tangibly touches us through the living images of one another. Though “no man has ever seen God;” yet, “if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:12)

As this love is perfected, so we see God more and more clearly in people around us, and so come to burn with living charity for our brothers and sisters for the love of God, Whom we behold reflected in the very fiber of their being. God, in His goodness, has blessed us with His own reflection—not satisfied with something as two-dimensional as a photograph, He gave us one another, to be the living, breathing images of Himself in the world.

Marissa Standage

Marissa Standage

Marissa Standage recently graduated from Holy Apostles College and Seminary with her bachelor's degree in philosophy and theology. She loves teaching and tutoring, and has worked with students of various grades for several years. As the oldest of six, Marissa was home schooled right through high school, and has enjoyed a deep love for the Catholic faith, family, and education based on Socratic discussion. Between her college work and teaching, her favorite past-times include spending time and having great conversations with family and friends, reading, baking sourdough bread (and all kinds of other sourdough goodies from chocolate cake to crackers), and knitting socks. In the midst of this full and wonderful life, she is striving to discern God's plan for her in this world, and to cultivate the virtues in the daily opportunities to grow in His love.

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