The Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) today. St. Bonaventure was a contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas and was honoured a Doctor of the church. For a more detailed biography of his life, interested reader may refer to the link to the Catholic Encyclopeadia. St. Bonaventure was a prolific writer thus has great contribution to the theological development of the Church.
To prepare myself in the pursuit of perpetual diaconate, I apply to enrol in Religious Studies program offered in the Holy Spirit Seminary College. The deadline has already passed. Nevertheless, Fr. William Lo encouraged me to contact the office. This afternoon, I sat for a 2-hour written test. I was wondering what a waste of time it was. I scored a 4.5 out of 5 in the English language benchmark test. I am an English teachers and I have been using English most of the time in the last decade. I was confident that whatever the test, I would finish it within 45 minutes. I was too arrogant and totally wrong. The test consisted of a translation of a two-and-a-half-page article about "Virginal Conception" into Chinese! Chinese is my Achilles' heel. I did not finish the translation and managed only two pages because I arrived at the College at 3:20 p.m. and the office closes at 4:30 p.m. I was too overconfident.
After the test, I hurried home to mum and drank with her. I am intoxicated.
Today, we read of the first part of the story of the call of Moses. It took place in Horeb on the west side of the wilderness. It was called the mountain of God (Exodus 3:1). Later, Moses was to bring the Israelites onto this mountain to serve God.
He said, "But I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain." (Exodus 3:12)
Before this, let us figure out the concept of holiness.
First of all, God attracted the attention of Moses with a great sight of a burning bush which was not burnt (Exodus 3:3). When Moses drew near, God called his name. This is a natural logical procedure, but not necessarily an exclusive procedure employed by God. Human beings rely heavily on their sight. Therefore, I said it was natural and logical to catch their attention with visual images. However, there were occasions in which God attracted a crowd through sounds. For example, the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. No matter what, it is almost always God who takes the initiative.
Then he said, "Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
And he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (Exodus 3:5-6).
Why should mere mortals not go any nearer to God? Why should shoes be removed when you are standing on holy ground?
Probably, it was a misguided superstition that we were too filthy and unworthy to approach God. God is an awesome Otherness. Unworthy creatures approach the glory of God at their own perils. Hagar expressed such a sentiment when God appeared to her when she fled from Sarai.
she said, "Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?" (Genesis 16:13b)
It is an interesting phenomenon. Ancient people relied on God who was too powerful to approach. They wanted to keep a safe enough distance from Him and yet wanted His blessings. In fact, the survival of ancient people depended on the community (and God). Nobody wanted to tinker with this. Nobody wanted to bring down the house. There were a lot of taboos to guarantee the safety of the community. There was no room for mistakes.
This reminds me of a section of translation I did today. Traditionally, theologians explained that Jesus was conceived by a virgin because sexual intercourse was filthy. In modern eyes, this is ridiculous, making the whole concept of "Virginal Conception" a caricature, a laughing joke. Therefore, many modern people reject the concept of "Virginal Conception".
On this issue, I side with modern people though I may be wrong. Sexuality is a gift from God. It is true that the intense sensations it carries have been abused. But perversion cannot disqualify the noble status of sexuality given by God. Sexual intercourse can be noble. Of course, this does not deny the "virginal conception" of Jesus. Jesus was conceived by a virgin for reasons other than the filthiness of sexual intercourse. "Sex is dirty" will only distract us from seeing the theological significance of this concept.
Back to Moses. To this date, I don't see why we should remove our shoes from our feet when we are standing on holy ground. I think the shoes will not be able to make the holy ground dirty. Perhaps God wants us to have direct contact with the holy ground through bare feet. Probably He wants to channel some energy, some qi from the holy ground through our bare feet. Pure fantasy!
Dear Lord, perhaps I am a filthy man with a filthy mind and get so used to being filthy that I do not see how filthy I am. Transform this filthy heart of mine so that I may become worthy to receive You in my house. Amen.
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