The Healing Power of Reality

Lately I have been reflecting on the healing power that is unleashed when one simply gazes full-face upon reality, and allows reality to extend its embrace.

I suppose that is more readily apparent when one capitalizes the r.

But then this week I was struck by the reading at Mass of Moses at the burning bush:

Moses decided, "I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned." When the LORD saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush, "Moses! Moses!" He answered, "Here I am." God said, "Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. (Ex. 3:3-5)

Moses' encounter with God at the burning bush was one where distance was mandated. There was a holiness which was infinite separation between Moses and God. Moses did not even know what to call this reality.

The only reason that I can talk differently about Reality is that I have met Him and through His Church I have seen His face. His name is Jesus Christ, Emmanuel.

You have not come to a mountain ... burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words... The sight was so terrifying that Moses said "I am trembling with fear." But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God... to the church of the firstborn... to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant... (Heb.12:18-19, 21-24)

In my experience, and I have no reason to believe that I am unique, reality still holds an edge of terror for me like it did for Moses. But I believe that terror looms in the anxiety of anticipation of exposure. In other words, terror lives where sin lives. What I mean is the sort of anxiety that overtakes you when you need to make a confession, or make restitution, until you actually do it. There is also another dreadful sort of anxiety that just sits with you when something within you is disordered, but you can't even really put your finger on it, much less know how to make a confession or a restitution and get free. This is especially when we need to turn ourselves full-face to reality and seek that healing.

I had an experience of this recently. While I talked with my husband, I brought out into the open, and hence into the reality of our relationship, and hence, before Jesus Christ, something which was bothering me. That process brought order and peace where there had been disorder and anxiety. It sounds very simple, but actually it was the fruit of tremendous grace and work on one hand, and an old, crushing pain on the other.

Still -- and I don't know how to say this well -- just as God sometimes uses years of therapy and medicine to heal someone of a disease, sometimes He uses a word and a moment. I think the point is that God gives us what we need in order that we may know Him more intimately. Apparently what God wishes me to know of Him is that if look to Him, owning what I truly am, nothing more, nothing less, I will see that He is love and mercy, and that He tells me "Don't be afraid. It is I."