DESIRING SUPERNATURAL KNOWLEDGE AND POWER

January 9, 2009

Sunday we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, when he ended his “hidden years” in Nazareth and began his public ministry. The moment invites us to recall our own baptism and its primary effects: the sacrament cleanses us of original sin, initiates us into the life of Jesus Christ, crucified, dead, and risen, as members of his Mystical Body, the Church.  In effect, Baptism makes us adopted children of God and heirs of heaven. Without the grace of this Sacrament, we cannot have access to the supernatural knowledge and love of God, or to participation in his life. The world will always seek supernatural knowledge and power, but without faith in the power of the Sacrament of Baptism, it will do so in misguided ways.

In illustration, you may have noticed ads for psychic counselors, in the newspaper or on television in recent times. There is also a perennial assortment of Hollywood movies and TV programs involving the supernatural, from the X Files to Sabrina, the Teenage Witch to the Harry Potter books and films.

Humans have always sought to establish contact with what is beyond them and beyond this world. The earliest peoples, surrounded by the elements of nature, developed nature religions, and ascribed divine power to the sun, the moon, and the other elements of nature. When people began to develop cities, they projected a heaven populated by a community of gods, with their own hierarchies, politics, and rivalries, just as they experienced in their own earthly cities. But this was before the one true God revealed himself,  starting with Abraham, and finally, in the fullness of time, through Jesus Christ, his only-begotten son.

From that time on, it has been possible to worship God in Spirit and truth (cf. John 4:20-24). But the temptation remains to allow one’s unbridled imagination, instead of God’s revelation, to guide one’s view of the unseen spirit realm. There has also been a tendency of fallen human nature to seek what Adam and Eve sought when they disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit in the garden. The temptation, remember, was that if they ate it, they would be equal to God. When they did eat it, however, their eyes were opened, and they realized they had been deceived.

The deceit goes on. The temptation remains to seek to transcend the limitations of human nature and acquire supernatural knowledge and power, instead of humbly trusting in God. We see temptation today in psychic counseling ads and in many other ways. Witchcraft, and especially Satanism, usually involves a pact with the devil or at least some imploring of evil spirits for assistance. It engages in rites to awaken the dead, or to bring disaster or even death upon another. To seek to discover the future through palm reading, tarot cards, or some other form of fortunetelling, or to try to control the future or the lives of others, even with good intentions and toward good ends, through black or so-called “white” magic, witchcraft, or sorcery represents a refusal to accept the truth of the limitations of our human condition.

We must remember the First Commandment of the Decalogue: "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before me!" When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he repeated the precept found in Deuteronomy: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).
God can choose to reveal the future through his prophets or saints:  what he normally asks of us is trust in his divine providence. The future should hold no fears for us, because God has hold of the future! As the Apostle Paul reminds us "We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love him" (Romans 8:28).

To acknowledge our dependence on God, and his desire that we trust in him, in no way contradicts our shared responsibility to use our wits to foresee, as well as we can, potential future risks to our well-being, potential future opportunities to accomplish good, or the likely consequences of current courses of action or the social drift. We should be forward looking and act now in ways that will best promise to create a future worthy of us. We should also always appreciate the considerable human powers that we  have, and use those powers and resources for positive action in the world. And at all times, we should pray to God for his guidance and grace.

When it comes to fantasies and artistic works of fiction, they seem to play a normal and healthy part in the lives of children and adults alike, excluding, of course, those works which debase us by vulgarity, empty titillation, obscenity, or the promotion and glamorization of false values and beliefs. From a Christian standpoint, however, the most important thing to remember is that what God has revealed to us is far more exciting and fantastic than anything we could possibly have dreamed up. The gateway to the supernatural is not superstitious beliefs or practices. It is Christian baptism and faith.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 11-Jan-2010 8:22 sitemap