The Mystery of God

Hi Soul 🌻 

I pray that this Sunflower Selah letter finds you well — and inspires you to take a pause to be with God.

A week ago I announced that I am about to go through Byzantine Catholic Catechism with my priest, Fr. Ed from St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church in New York, USA.

This is a journey I have felt inspired to share with you.

The first week’s theme has been The Mystery of God.

Below I’ll share my reading, reflections and the Q&A I had with Fr. Ed during our weekly call.

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Reading

Light for Life: The Mystery of God With Us — Believed, Celebrated & Lived.

Chapter 1 — The Mystery of God

JUST WHAT IS MYSTERY?

God is a mystery.

• God is a mystery - until we admit this we cannot truly know Him.

• He remains always beyond our power of understanding.

God exists beyond time and space.

• God exists beyond all the limitations of space and time which bind us. While we seek futilely to grasp at God, it is God who has sought us and revealed Himself in ways that we can only partly understand.

Faith requires a leap beyond ordinary knowledge.

• Faith requires a leap beyond the knowledge of a loving and holy Creator. In truth, this can be done only by the favor and power of this Supreme Being. As material creatures, our direct experience of God is limited.

God reveals Himself in many and varied ways.

• God has revealed Himself in many and varied ways. God speaks to the hearts of those who have faith and calls them to knowledge of Himself and of His loving plan for humanity.

God is holy, infinite, transcendent, good, loving.

• He is holy. He is infinite and transcendent. He is good and loving.

Our concepts of God are inadequate.

• As our experience of God grows through faith, we learn how all our ordinary concepts of God are so inadequate.

• If we think of Him merely as a logical necessity to explain the existence of the universe, then we fail to see the love at work in His plan.

Life itself is a mystery.

• Mysteries entertain with suspense and fear, forcing us to face our own frailty in the dangers of life and the unknowns of death.

• These trivial mysteries shed light on the profoundness of life itself as a mystery - both known and unknown, alluring and fearful.

• Unless we believe that what we cannot know is meaningless, then we must face mystery.

Mystery implies hope for what is veiled to be uncovered, and implies that answers to our ultimate questions do exist.

• The unknown is frightening but mystery is not simply the unknowable. It is also the hope that what is veiled can be uncovered, at least within the limitations of our nature.

• “God gave me the commission to preach among you His word in its fullness: that mystery is hidden from ages and generations past, but now revealed to His holy ones.”

• Mystery actually implies that answers to our ultimate questions do exist, although we cannot comprehend them. By the very fact of their existence, mysteries call us to transcend our human nature and point towards the divine.

HIDDEN YET REVEALED

God does reveal some of the mystery to us.

• An aspect of the mystery is that God does reveal some of the mystery to us. It is a mystery how and why the Unknowable chooses to communicate Himself to us.

• “God causes the changes of the times and seasons, makes kings and unmakes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who understand. He reveals deep and hidden things and knows what is in the darkness, for the light dwells with Him… there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.” Dn 2:21-23, 28.

However much He reveals Himself, God remains mystery – the I AM

• However much He reveals Himself, God remains mystery.

• God tells Moses, “No one sees my face and still lives.” (Ex 33:20) When Moses persisted and asked God for His name, the response was mysterious. “God replied, “I am who am” This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: “I AM sent me to You”. (Ex 3:14)

• God’s revelation in this way expresses that what He is in Himself is not knowable through human limitation.

Some knowledge of God is beyond human abilities

• Some knowledge of God is beyond human abilities. In speak of God, when there is a question of His essence, then it is time to keep silence… if the creature does not know itself, how can it explain things that are beyond it? Of such things it is the time to keep silence. Here silence is surely better.”

• St. John Chrysostom declared, “Let us invoke Him as the inexpressible God, incomprehensible, invisible and unknowable; let us avow that He surpasses all power of human speech that he eludes the grasp of every mortal intelligence, that the angels cannot penetrate Him, nor the seraphim see Him in full clarity, nor the cherubim fully understand Him, for He is invisible to the principalities and powers, the virtues and all creatures without exception; only the Son and the Holy Spirit know Him.”

• St. Maximus the Confessor spoke of the transcendence of God: “God is one without beginning, incomprehensible, possessing completely the total potentially of being, altogether excluding notions of when and how, inaccessible to all, and not to be known through natural image by any creature.”

God is ever the same

• In the anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom we pray the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. We pray the same thought: “You are God: ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing yet ever the same.”

Knowledge of God is apophatic.

• True knowledge of God is apophatic, that the essence of God is beyond the understanding of any creature. We know God best when we come to Him by rejecting all false concepts of Him and by continually purifying our idea of God, even though what He is in Himself remains unknowable.

• This awareness that we cannot completely grasp God is the very means which opens us to infinity.

IMAGE OF THE “BRIGHT CLOUD”.

Our experience of God = Cloud signifying clarity and darkness

• The glory of God often appears as a cloud signifying both clarity and darkness.

• According to Scripture:

  • When God made His covenant with Abraham, “a trance fell upon Abram and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him” (Gn 15:12).

  • When God gave the law to Moses, “the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud” (Ex 24:16).

  • The Lord appeared to the people of Israel as a cloud leading them from Pharaoh and through the desert to the Promised Land. The prophet Ezechiel described the presence of the Lord in the temple, “... the cloud filled the inner court, and the glory of the Lord rose from over the cherubim to the threshold of the temple; the temple was filled with the cloud, and all the cloud was bright with the glory of the Lord” (Ez 10:4).

  • When the Lord Jesus was transfigured in glory on Mount Tabor, He and the disciples were overshadowed by a bright cloud (Mt 17:5)

Through mystery and the most ordinary human experiences, we are led to a greater awareness of God.

• The cloud is an image of our experience of God; like a cloud, our knowledge of God is both bright and obscure.

• Gregory of Nyssa describes how we are led through mystery to a greater awareness of God: “Next comes a close awareness of hidden things, and by this the soul is guided through sense phenomena to the world of the invisible.”

• God spoke to Moses “face to face, as man speaks to his friend".”

• Mystery does not hide, but reveals, thus we encounter God in the most ordinary human experiences.

The still, small voice is our God speaking to our innermost being in quiet and gentleness.

• Note the gentle appearance of God to Elijah on Mount Horeb. Elijah is told that God will pass by. A strong and heavy wind, an earthquake and a fire sweep through; but God was none of these. “... after the fire [there was] a still small voice. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. (3/1 Kgs 19:12-13). The Lord spoke to him there. The still, small voice is our God speaking to our innermost being in quiet and gentleness.

Don’t just look for God in the spectacular, He comes to us on His terms in mystery.

• Those looking for Him in the spectacular will miss His coming to us on His terms in mystery.

• The true mystery of God is beyond all human comprehension.

ICON OF THE INVISIBLE.

Jesus is the only adequate image of God.

• As Christians we believe that the fullness of the revelation of God is in our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we confess as “begotten of the Father before all ages, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father, through whom all things were made.”

• Thus Jesus Himself is the only adequate image of God. Whoever has seen Him has seen the Father (Jn 14:9), for “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15).

Who-Am = YHWH = o oon = Christ Our God

• The mysterious name “Who-Am”, YHWH in Hebrew, was translated as o oon in the Greek Bible, the Septuagint. The fourth Gospel uses this same word for Christ: “No one has ever seen God. The only One (o oon), who is the same God and is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (Jn 1:18). And so we write this Name in the halo surrounding Christ’s head in icons and proclaim in our services, “Blessed is He-Who-Is (o oon), Christ our God…”

God is not fully transparent to us (troparion / kontakion).

• Jesus revealed to His disciples only “as much of His glory as they could behold (troparion).

• His disciples “beheld as much of His glory as they could” (kontakion).

• God’s self-revelation to us is limited, not by His love, but by our inability to grasp Him.

• We can never know God completely, but we can always know Him increasingly better.

• One may intellectually search for God, but He has already found us and united Himself to us in ways beyond our human understanding.

• We can hear the still, small voice of God speaking to our inner being across the ages with His timeless voice of love, and long to be “worthy to partake with a pure conscience of [His] heavenly mysteries, and thus know Him in a way which surpasses the limitations of our mind.

Prayer that concludes the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil.

• O Christ our God, the mystery of Your plan has been completed and perfected, as far as in us lay. We have commemorated Your death; we have seen the figure of your resurrection; we have been filled with Your endless life; we have enjoyed Your delights which cannot be exhausted; and of which we beg You to deem us worthy in the age to come through the grace of the Father who has no beginning and of Your all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit…”

Reflection

One of the ways this chapter came alive for me this week was through an experience at a Christian retreat. During a prayer pilgrimage through a garden, different stations introduced ways Christians throughout history have communed with God. Out of all the practices presented, two especially drew me: making the sign of the cross and full prostration.

The prostration particularly moved me because it reminded me of an experience I had about a year ago in a small church in Denmark. I remember feeling an interior invitation simply to lie prostrate before the altar in the form of a cross. I wept as I prayed because I experienced such a deep love for God. I had not connected that experience to any particular Christian tradition at the time — it simply arose from prayer.

Now, a year later, I encountered the practice again, this time as part of the Christian tradition. It also reminded me of seeing monastics, especially Mother Natalia, praying with prostrations. I found myself drawn to it again. There is something about these embodied forms of prayer that speaks deeply to my heart. At the same time, I find them both attractive and intimidating. They draw me while also revealing how much I still have to surrender.

Later that day I spoke with several women at the retreat about my growing attraction to monastic life. One of them unexpectedly said that I had an "angelic presence." This is not the first time someone has said something similar to me. While I don't want to build my discernment on comments like this, I do notice that experiences such as these seem to accompany my growing desire to give myself more completely to God.

As I reflect on this chapter about mystery, I also notice what feels like a series of quiet providences. When I first visited St. Mary's Byzantine Catholic Church, Fr. Ed gave me Light for Life, the Byzantine prayer book, and a book – “The Light of His Eyes” – written by a nun from Christ the Bridegroom Monastery (which is the monastery I have been in contact with). Since then, I continue encountering monastic spirituality in unexpected places. None of these experiences proves necessarily that God is calling me to monastic life, but together they have made me more attentive to the possibility.

This chapter has made me wonder whether this is one way God works through mystery — not by removing all uncertainty, but by gently inviting us, over time, to become attentive to His presence through seemingly ordinary events that gradually form the heart.

Q&A

1. God's Providence and My Story

The chapter teaches that God continually seeks us before we seek Him. Looking back, I can see that God was pursuing me even when I was living in ways contrary to His will, and He used unexpected turns in my life to draw me closer to Him. How does the Church understand this? How do we distinguish between God working through our history and saying that our sinful choices themselves were God's will?

God willed us to have free will, but He does not will us to sin. Because He loves us, He permits us to make wrong decisions rather than forcing us to choose rightly. God does not abandon us when we sin; instead, He continually works within our lives, drawing us back to Himself. Like a loving parent, God guides, encourages, and helps us discern, but He does not simply dictate every decision. We remain genuinely free to respond to Him. We do not need to know everything in advance. Faith is fundamentally an openness to God's work and His ongoing revelation in our lives.

2. Grace, Holiness, and the Christian Journey

I interpret my life through the lens of God's faithfulness rather than my own perfection. Like Moses, David, Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene, I was not led to God because I lived a flawless life, but because He continued pursuing me. At the same time, Christ calls us to holiness and perfection. How do we reconcile resting in God's grace with earnestly striving for holiness?

The primary way we participate in God's work is by becoming a witness through the way we live our lives. Our task is not to force others to change, but to embody Christ so that others are drawn to Him. We "love people into the Kingdom." Holiness is therefore not opposed to grace; rather, it is the fruit of allowing God's grace to transform us. We strive for holiness while trusting that it is ultimately God who changes hearts.

3. Discerning God's Will Within the Mystery of Providence

This chapter teaches that God often reveals only as much as we can bear. As I discern monastic life, marriage, and my professional vocation, how do I remain radically open to God's guidance without mistaking every new desire for His voice? How do I distinguish between perseverance — which is a Christian virtue — and openness to God's surprising invitations? More broadly, how do I discern what God is asking me to faithfully steward, when He may be inviting me to let something go, and how can I recognize whether my past experiences are revealing a genuine pattern of God's guidance or simply my own interpretation of them?

God often gives us an interior sense that something is right. We should learn to listen to God's messages, not only in prayer but also through the "messengers" He places in our lives — people whose words or observations invite us to deeper reflection. Sometimes these revelations are both beautiful and intimidating because they uncover something about ourselves that we had not yet fully seen. As we grow in Christ, our emotions also mature, becoming more trustworthy and better able to help us discern God's invitations. We should remain attentive while also allowing discernment to unfold patiently over time.

4. Vocation, Responsibility, and Participation in God's Work

As I grow closer to God, I become more aware of His providence, but I also receive more responsibilities through the gifts He has given me. How should I understand my vocation in light of God's mysterious providence? Whether as a psychologist, a wife, or possibly a monastic, how do I faithfully participate in God's work while remembering that it is ultimately God — not me — who draws people to Himself?

Joy is an important guide in vocational discernment. Pay attention to where you experience deep and lasting joy rather than only immediate excitement. Discernment requires experience. Just as people date before marriage, so too vocational discernment involves a kind of "courtship." Spend time visiting monastic communities, continue dating if marriage remains a possibility, and continue exploring your gifts as a psychologist. Through lived experience, God gradually reveals where He is calling you.

Fr. Ed also encouraged me to continue my psychology studies, recognizing them not as a distraction from my vocation but as preparation for serving others. The discipline and effort required by my studies may feel like carrying a cross, but they can become part of God's formation of me and equip me for future pastoral and psychological work.

5. Growing into Christ's Compassion

As I grow closer to God, I find that I become less interested in judging others and more moved to grieve and pray for them. I become quieter, more patient, and more aware that God is already pursuing each person's heart, just as He pursued mine. At the same time, I don't want this to become passivity or complacency — I want to be a faithful instrument of God's love. How does the Church understand this kind of grief and compassion? Is this participation in Christ's own love for the world? And how do we discern when we are called to speak, when we are called to remain silent, and how our particular vocation shapes the way we participate in God's work of drawing others to Himself?

When we find ourselves emotionally moved by another person or situation, we should first bring that movement into prayer rather than ignoring it. Genuine compassion can become an invitation to act, but our response should arise from prayer and spiritual maturity rather than impulse alone. We should not hesitate to reach out when God places someone on our heart, yet we must also recognize the limits of our own preparation. In situations involving profound suffering, such as addiction or mental illness, proper formation and training are themselves part of God's providence. My psychology studies may become one of the ways God prepares me to accompany people safely and effectively. My growing compassion is therefore not meant to remain passive but to mature into wise, prayerful, and competent service.

May the Mystery of God continue to be revealed to us all.

Glory to God,
🌻 Martine Madeleine | Bloom Beyond