Someone once asked me, “Father, can I really see God?” And I responded wholeheartedly, “Yes!” She still seemed skeptical, which her next question proved: “But how?” How, indeed, can we see God?
Jesus starts to answer that question in what he does in his appearance to his disciples after his resurrection. Really, his words could be said to this person just as well as to his disciples: “Why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”
The first step in coming to see the risen Jesus is understanding that very reality: Jesus really rose from the dead! He didn’t rise in some metaphorical, spiritual, ephemeral way. No, he rose physically, tangibly, absolutely. To use our language about the Eucharist, we could say that Jesus rose really, truly and substantially: body, blood, soul and divinity. When we seek Jesus, we aren’t seeking an idea or something purely spiritual. We’re seeking the one who, after he rose from the dead, “showed them his hands and his feet.” The one who, when “they gave him a piece of baked fish, he took it and ate it in front of them.”
But Jesus isn’t sitting at my dinner table. The disciples had that great advantage, but how can I experience the truly risen Jesus? St. Augustine comes to the rescue here. St. Augustine teaches that we have five spiritual senses that are like our five physical senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. We have a similar experience in our souls with these spiritual senses to what we experience in our bodies with the physical senses.
In his “Confessions,” St. Augustine writes: “What is it that I love in loving You? Not corporeal beauty, nor the splendor of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the embraces of flesh. I love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embrace in loving my God, who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and embrace of my inner man — where that light shines unto my soul which no place can contain, where there is sound which time snatches not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperses, where there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where there is a bond of union which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my God.”
These experiences are no less real than the experiences the disciples had of Jesus after his resurrection. It is the same Jesus who showed his disciples his hands and feet who became St. Augustine’s light, sound, fragrance, food and embrace, and who also becomes our life. In prayer and in the sacraments, we experience the risen Jesus both physically and spiritually. The light of the Paschal candle, the sound of his word proclaimed, the fragrance of incense, the food of the most holy Eucharist, and the embrace of our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ all lead us to experience Jesus with our spiritual senses, too. And so, we not only see God, but experience him with our whole being, and like the disciples we are filled with joy.
Father Aamodt is associate pastor of St. Hubert in Chanhassen. He can be reached at aric.aamodt@st.hubert.org.
Sunday, April 18
Third Sunday of Easter
