Charged with the Grandeur of God

In Hopkins arguably most famous poem God's Grandeur (I don't think it's his best one, personally), the opening line reads:

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God."

Curiously, I began to think about this poem while reading from the philosophy of Karl Marx, who holds religion to be the opiate of the masses. Religion as the ideological skin that humanity must shed if it is to realize its true nature both individually and as a society.

Of course, as a Jesuit, I do not agree with such sentiments. Yet, such sentiments arguably arise because religion can become an all-too-comfortable boys club that is no longer able to bear witness to its true spirit. God becomes a means to an end. The message of the Gospels becomes stripped of its vitality in order to further personal, political agendas. Clothed in religious language lie hearts of pride, selfishness, and greed.

Yet, I do believe that the world is charged with the grandeur of God--a world radiating with the light of Christ. The spirit of the Trinity is found in creation, in each and every one of us. God animates and electrifies the life of this world--past, present, and future. And we are charged with the task to bear witness to the spirit of God within us--a task done at its best with alacrity and joy.

I do not believe that humanity attains its true being when it casts off belief in God. On the contrary, I believe we become alienated from our true selves, selves that ultimately only make sense when we are in relationship with God--God who loves us incredibly, radically, unconditionally. When we bear witness to that true love, we should have no need to defend our actions or our faith. Our actions should speak for themselves.

Despite our sinfulness, I believe there is great good found within all of us. I have seen this and experienced this with my own eyes. If we can recognize this good--this divinely-charged life--within our brothers and sisters and draw out that goodness from within humanity, we are well on our way towards the Kingdom of Heaven, where all the world is embraced with Bright Wings.

The Gift of Inspiration

"The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being (Genesis 2:7)."

I was recently attending to my private night prayer, slowing myself down and consciously breathing in the Holy Spirit, when I felt the consolation of noticing God's inspiration within me. From the Latin word Inspirare (In-into + spirare-breathe). One might also define inspiration as grace--a gift freely given by God.

In a fragment of his poem The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe, Gerard Manley Hopkins writes:

"this needful, never spent,
and nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise."

Artists, in the most general sense of the term, derive their life's work from inspiration. There is something about much art that goes beyond the artist. Somehow, the art taps into the Divine, is charged with the grandeur of God. God breathes into the artist, and through the art-form, that inspiration is channeled timelessly into the many that come into contact with the inspired creation.

How wondrous is the inspired event of the breaking of the bread?

We do well to take notice, to humbly receive the ever-present gift, and to offer exhalations of thanksgiving.