Reassurance of Life in Lent

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John  10:10). Jesus gives us abundant life.  He said "Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life." (Luke 18:29-30). In Genesis, it is written "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, 'let there be light'; and there was light." (Genesis 1:1-3). In the Hebrew Tradition, water indicates drowning or loss of life...It is why, in their crossing from Egypt to Sinai, the Israelites followed Moses in crossing the Red Sea and could only survive because the water of the Sea was not allowed to touch them while following them the Egyptians and their armies drowned since the water was returned to its normal level. In the Creed completed at the First Council of  Constantinople; 381 AD, the Church proclaims her faith in "The Holy Spirit the Lord and Giver of life". He is the eternal power of God who sanctifies the offerings and transforms them into the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharistic prayers of the Church. Eucharist means "Thanksgiving"; In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is clarified "Eucharist, because it is an action of thanksgiving to God. The Greek words eucharistein and eulogein recall the Jewish blessings that proclaim — especially during a meal — God’s works: creation, redemption, and sanctification. (CCC 1328).

Last Sunday, my spiritual director, Father Daniel Callam; CSB proposed that I read Psalm 103. I find it suitable for Lent, because the passions and death of Christ precede his Resurrection. And the Resurrection has been always the central celebration of Christians except that the humanism of Christ took on a priority in the West since St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), and after him thousands of scholars and artists, celebrated the birth of Christ in the manger and, following it, his humanity. Christmas has become commercialized in recent decades...
When I read Psalm 103, I felt much reassurance...
"Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name!" starts the Psalm...
It ends with this magnificent praise:"Bless the LORD, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul!"
The entire creation is called to praise the Lord God...
This itself is also in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans - [For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.] (Romans 8:19-28).
If creation has been groaning to be set free, it means that creation longs for the purpose for which each member of hers has been created - This is precisely the hymn of Teilhard de Chardin - An excerpt (from Teilhard.com) follows:

“Since once again, Lord — though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia — I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labors and sufferings of the world.

Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits.

My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day.

One by one, Lord, I see and I love all those whom you have given me to sustain and charm my life. One by one also I number all those who make up that other beloved family which has gradually surrounded me, its unity fashioned out of the most disparate elements, with affinities of the heart, of scientific research and of thought. And again one by one — more vaguely it is true, yet all-inclusively — I call before me the whole vast anonymous army of living humanity; those who surround me and support me though I do not know them; those who come, and those who go; above all, those who in office, laboratory and factory, through their vision of truth or despite their error, truly believe in the progress of earthly reality and who today will take up again their impassioned pursuit of the light.

This restless multitude, confused or orderly, the immensity of which terrifies us; this ocean of humanity whose slow, monotonous wave-flows trouble the hearts even of those whose faith is most firm: it is to this deep that I thus desire all the fibres of my being should respond. All the things in the world to which this day will bring increase; all those that will diminish; all those too that will die: all of them, Lord, I try to gather into my arms, so as to hold them out to you in offering. This is the material of my sacrifice; the only material you desire.

Once upon a time men took into your temple the first fruits of their harvests, the flower of their flocks. But the offering you really want, the offering you mysteriously need every day to appease your hunger, to slake your thirst is nothing less than the growth of the world borne ever onwards in the stream of universal becoming. Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing host which your whole creation, moved by your magnetism, offers you at this dawn of a new day. This bread, our toil, is of itself, I know, but an immense fragmentation; this wine, our pain, is no more, I know, than a draught that dissolves. Yet in the very depths of this formless mass you have implanted — and this I am sure of, for I sense it — a desire, irresistible, hallowing, which makes us cry out, believer and unbeliever alike: ‘

Lord, make us one.’”

— Teilhard de Chardin

[And a leper came to (Jesus) beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I will; be clean." And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.] (Mark 1:40-42). I love the above event from the Gospel because I read it when I was recovering after my cancer surgery in 2005 and found in it that Jesus did not ask the leper whether he had faith in the power of Jesus but acted immediately to heal him moved by pity...

And above all, we celebrate life of joy in the Lord from the mouth of Him who is the Saviour of humanity: 

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John  10:10). Jesus gives us abundant life.  He said "Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life." (Luke 18:29-30). 

In Genesis, it is written "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, 'let there be light'; and there was light." (Genesis 1:1-3). In the Hebrew Tradition, water indicates drowning or loss of life...It is why, in their crossing from Egypt to Sinai, the Israelites followed Moses in crossing the Red Sea and could only survive because the water of the Sea was not allowed to touch them while following them the Egyptians and their armies drowned since the water was returned to its normal level. In the Creed completed at the First Council of  Constantinople; 381 AD, the Church proclaims her faith in "The Holy Spirit the Lord and Giver of life". He is the eternal power of God who sanctifies the offerings and transforms them into the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharistic prayers of the Church. Eucharist means "Thanksgiving"; In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is clarified "Eucharist, because it is an action of thanksgiving to God. The Greek words eucharistein and eulogein recall the Jewish blessings that proclaim — especially during a meal — God’s works: creation, redemption, and sanctification. (CCC 1328).

"Jesus is a revelation. Jesus is a revolution" says the Jesuit scholar Henri Boulad. But what kind of revolution? "Jesus empties heaven and moves the [Divine presence] to be among us: Emmanuel." and continues "Is it possible that God makes such a radical move? I have a response here to our Muslim brothers who think it is impossible. For them God cannot descend from heaven without losing his honor and dignity."  This was a homily by Fr. Boulad on Christmas in 2014 - More can be found here...

Now listen carefully because here Henri Boulad summarizes the Christian Mystery in as simple language as possible "If Jesus Christ is an illusion...If Christianity is a sheer mystification...If God did not come to us and did not descend from his heaven...If he did not take the radical and seemingly impossible leap of the incarnation, then he ceases being credible - he ceases being love - he ceases being God."

Let us reflect. Here is the message: 

"The scandal of the Incarnation, which means that we cannot believe that God could debase himself , becomes the key and the supreme proof  that this is the truth"

"But a God in heaven well served who looks to me and says 'You suffer. Have courage. Perhaps one day you will be with me in my heaven' is not God. A God who says 'Patience. I am fine here but you over there can suffer' is not God. This is the false God that we, often, figure that he sends us prophets from time to time to console us' . NO, NO. NO. This God who looks to me with a telescope is not my God. I do not want him."

"If there is a phenomenon of atheism today in the West as well as in Egypt, it is precisely because men say we are in fact better than God. The walk that I walk to help when I see a hungry person or a thirsty one or a person without faith, can't God do it? Has he no choice regarding his honor?"

"No. He did it. This is the supreme proof of the Christian Mystery. Do not look somewhere else. 'Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down...' He descended. No more seventh heaven..."

"The only God I can believe, love and worship is the God Jesus Christ because he descended to me."

"'Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down...' "

And the great preacher and Jesuit scholar Henri Boulad finished here his homily. 

In 2017, Bishop Robert Barron spoke about communication and image making of everything which, if followed in reasoning, it leads us to The Trinity in God (here).

With Fr. Boulad, and indeed with Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, we see the beauty of God in  all creation - Scientific development is one of the venues that help us see this beauty if followed properly.

In scientific development: At the end of the 19th century, physicists were unable to explain why the observed spectrum of black body radiation, which is still considered to have been accurately measured, diverged significantly at higher frequencies from that predicted by existing theories. In 1900, Max Planck empirically derived a formula for the observed spectrum. He assumed that a hypothetical electrically-charged oscillator that contained black-body radiation could only change its energy in a minimal increment, E, that was proportional to the frequency of its associated electromagnetic wave. He was able to calculate the proportionality constant, h, from the experimental measurements, and that constant is named in his honor. In 1905, the value E was associated by Albert Einstein with a "quantum" or minimal element of the energy of the electromagnetic wave itself. The light quantum behaved in some respects as an electrically neutral particle, as opposed to an electromagnetic wave. It was eventually called a photon. Much of the above scientific findings can be traced in my posts here,  here and here. According to the late physicist Stephen Hawking, the universe expanded from a very tiny 'singularity' starting with an inflationary period at the Big Bang (the beginning of creation). Robert Jastrow received his PhD. in theoretical physics from Columbia University in 1948 and was the first chairman of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee, which established the scientific goals for the exploration of the moon during the Apollo Lunar Landing in 1969. In an interview reported in Time Magazine and in New York Times in 1978, Jastrow indicated that the achievements in NASA's space program were like men climbing a huge mountain only to find theologians who preceded them waiting at the top.

According to the Anthropic Principle (regardless of whether it is Weak or Strong), the universe is fine tuned for life to a very accurate degree. There are some 30 constants that govern the laws of physics (such as Pi, Planck’s constant…etc). If one constant is slightly changed, the universe would end or collapse. Stephen Hawking said that if the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before life could have formed. Freeman Dyson draws the following conclusion “I conclude from the existence of these accidents that the universe is unexpectedly hospitable place for living creatures to make their home in. Being a scientist, trained in the habits of thought and language of the twentieth century rather than the eighteenth, I do not claim that the architecture of the universe proves the existence of God. I claim only that the architecture of the universe is consistent with the hypothesis that mind plays an essential role in its functioning” (Ian Barbour, When Science Meets Religion, 2000 - See also Paul Davies, Cosmic Jackpot, 2007).

In the natural world of biology, Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution with his book "On The Origin of Species by Natural Selection" which he further refined in "The Descent of Man". His theory has been since challenged - see "The Punctuated equilibrium" by S.J. Gould at Harvard University in which he explained the Cambrian Explosion which confirms that, contrary to Darwin's hypothesis, most evolution is characterized by long periods of evolutionary stability, which is infrequently punctuated by swift periods of branching speciation. With a PhD. in Philosophy from Princeton University, Professor David Berlinski was interviewed in June 2019 by Hoover Institution's Research Fellow Peter Robinson on his book “The Deniable Darwin” in which Berlinski mounts criticism of Darwin's theory based on the Cambrian Explosion (the interview can be watched here). In yet a more recent article published on August 29, 2019 in Quanta Magazine, explorers show that modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the genetic flow went both ways. It brings our attention to Yuval Noah Harari's book "A Brief History of Humankind" in which he outlines the stages of human development in 4 sections: The Cognitive Revolution; The Agricultural Revolution; The Unification of Humankind; and The Scientific Revolution...

And in the world of advanced technologies, much has been developed:
On February 27, 2020 a webinar showed how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Powering the Fight Against Financial Crime (here). Earlier in February 2020 Rebecca Knill, a writer who was deaf, explained how digital implants in her brain enable her to hear (see TED@WellsFargo here). In November 2019, amazing developments by two researchers Paul McEuen and Marc Miskin showed their exploration of new frontiers in nano technology that could turn smart iphones into artificial intelligence devices and, if successful, it could be planted in the brain or be used in other fields of communication (here) or as already used in medical sciences, it could be a new manufactured tool that helps physicians diagnose cancer early. Most interesting is the scale at which material can be bent without being broken - It is practically a quantum machine (see it here).

Google uses AI in bringing answers to queries of users. The algorithm used in machine learning mimics human behavior based on its large database from many sites on the Internet (Large Data). It is the same "Large Data" shown by NOVA in a documentary titled "Einstein's Quantum Riddle" and published in early 2019 here.  Einstein called it “spooky action at a distance,” but today quantum entanglement is poised to revolutionize technology from computers to cryptography. Physicists have gradually become convinced that the phenomenon—two subatomic particles that mirror changes in each other instantaneously over any distance—is real. But a few doubts remain. NOVA follows a ground-breaking experiment in the Canary Islands to use quasars at opposite ends of the universe to once and for all settle remaining questions. (Premiered January 9, 2019.)
I have already written about the "Quantum Universe" here and here...

Here are some newly found facts about the reality of quantum physics since the Big Bang (from the most recent to the older):
Physicists all over the world are looking for a theory that unifies all fields of inquiry (A Unified Grand Theory). Two theories are competing: String Theory (Point-like particles are replaced with one-dimensional objects called strings that propagate through space and interact with each other) and Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG).  LQG begins with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity (which predicts Gravitational Waves - See Nobel Prizes below) and attempts to add quantum features.
In October 2017, the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Rainer Weiss (MIT), Barry Barish (Caltech), and Kip Thorne (Caltech) for their contributions in the LIGO detector that confirmed Einstein's Theory of General Relativity re space-time curvature and the existence of quantum gravitational waves that go back to the Big Bang (see here).
In 2015,  Leo Kouwenhoven at TU Delft in Amsterdam, the Netherlands gave a talk in which he showed how nature itself works through quantum processes. As an example, a plant leaf takes the light of the Sun and, through quantum processes, electrons find a way to efficiently bind to the oxygen molecule thus they together produce oxygen that is necessary for human life...Professor Kouwenhoven was speaking about building quantum computers already made in the lab (see here)...

Could we find our way back to God...Read the Bible from the last book The Book of Revelation to the first book The Book of Genesis...Bishop Barron penetrated the Book of Revelation and connects it to the Book of Genesis - Arguably a very admirable interpretation based on the Fathers of the Church (here).
The above is a good start for Lent...

Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (here)...