The way to the Promised Land was through the desert, where all they had to eat was manna, manhu, which means “What’s this?” (Ex 16:15). No wonder they sometimes yearned for the good old days of slavery, anything rather than this “What’s this?” But the book of Deuteronomy tells us plainly what was in the Lords mind: before the people could be fit to enter the land of his promise, they must learn that man does not only live my nice safe intelligible bread, but “by whatever proceeds from the mouth of God” (Dt 8:3), received in the only way that it can be received, by faith.

This is always the shape of spiritual progress. We are led out of that kind of order which is built up on sin. That does not necessarily mean a situation of evident outrageous sin, but a situation whose fundamental principle is self-assertion, self-creation, which is therefore sinful at the root, however virtuous its branches may appear.

And one is led out into the desert, into the place of “What’s this?”, the place where we are fed and tended in a way that eludes our comprehension, precisely so that we may learn to live by faith, by trust in the living God. And so learn not to be God ourselves.

The whole world of our creating must be dismantled, so that all the various bits – all of which were, after all, created by God – can be reclaimed by God and built back into his creation, glorified yet further by the incredible new dignity of the new creation, that new order built up on the union of God and man in Christ. Then we come out from behind the bush where Adam fled in hiding, and God will no longer have to ask, Where are you?” We shall be in his world, visible to him, shining in the light of truth!

Father Simon Tugwell, O.P.


Taken from Magnificat, “Mediation of the Day” Saturday, February 7, 2009

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