Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News: For you created my inmost being

How rich are the depths of God – how deep his wisdom and knowledge – and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods! Who could ever know the mind of the Lord? Who could ever be his counsellor? Who could ever give him anything or lend him anything? All that exists comes from him; all is by him and for him. To him be glory for ever! Amen.

Roman 11:33 – 36

In another age, the inexplicable was considered miraculous, and just as likely, it would be termed a mystery. Science has, to a large degree, been able to quantify, measure and explain a great number of life’s mysteries. We do, however, have a deeper understanding of the defining myths that help us make sense of the world we live in, of our relationship with the divine, of our desire to be generative and sustainable.

Our great thinkers have also explored the relationship between ontology and epistemology to give us words, ideas and concepts on which to hang our understanding. In all humanity has not wasted its time. From the very beginning our experience in and of the world has affected the wqy we think about it. And many, many have wondered if their conclusions led closer to the mind of God himself.

We have been here such a brief time, even so, our philosophers, our prophets, our kings, our teachers, our storytellers have explored and re-explored, told their stories, pronounced their prophecies – but in the end, they know so little about the one who loves us, who created us and drew us into being. The psalmist who wrote Ps 139 was one of humanity’s most privileged members, for to him the God about whom so many wanted to understand, revealed himself so beautifully, so majestically, so poetically. Will we ever know the mind of God? I’m not sure we will. But we will be ever blessed in knowing his love for us. And maybe that’s quite enough.

Psalm 139

¹You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
²You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

⁷Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
¹²even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Peter

Peter's whereabouts for the next 2 weeks

Meetings coming up

Please forward any agenda items for meetings (with some indication of time required and context) to Carole at carole.goodwin@catholic.tas.edu.au