Vigils Reading

THE EXPERIENCE OF ETERNITY

From “Christian at the Crossroads” by Fr Karl Rahner

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In every human life not confined to the visible and tangible or totally

absorbed in the needs of the moment, but lived in the Spirit, there are moments

and events in which our whole existence comes into play, in which we are

brought up against our life in its entirety, in which the meaning and fulfillment

or failure of that life is weighed in the balance: perhaps when we make a

commitment to selfless love, or reach out in yearning and hope for the fulfill-

ment of our life, or are threatened in the depths of our existence. At those

moments attitudes are formed and decisions taken not wholly or rationally

explicable in purely inner-worldly terms and without an ultimate grounding in

the solely here and now; the presence and efficacy of the Spirit is sought – and

perhaps also discovered – in a more reflexive way.

Have we ever been silent although we wished to defend ourselves,

although we were treated with less than justice? Did we ever forgive although we

got no thanks for it and our silent pardon was taken for granted? Did we once

obey not because we had to or would otherwise have suffered unpleasant

consequences, but merely because of that mysterious, speechless,

incomprehensible force we call God and God’s will? Have we ever made a

sacrifice without thanks, acknowledgment or even sentiments of inner peace?

Have we ever been thoroughly lonely? Have we had to take a decision purely on

the verdict of our conscience, when we cannot tell anybody or explain to

anybody, when we are quite alone and know we are making a decision no one

can make for us and for which we shall be responsible to eternity? Have we ever

tried to love God when no wave of heartfelt enthusiasm sustains us, when we

cannot exchange ourselves and life’s pressures with God, when we think we are

dying of such love, when it feels like death and absolute negation, when we seem

to be summoned into the void and wholly unheard-of, when everything is

apparently becoming incomprehensible and seemingly meaningless?… And so

on.

We can all perhaps see ourselves in such life experiences, or think of our

own similar ones. If we can, then we have had the spiritual experience referred

to here: the experience of eternity, the experience that spirit is more than a piece

of this temporal world, the experience that the meaning of being human is not

exhausted in the meaning and happiness of this world, the experience of risk

and venturesome trust which has no provable justification deducible from mere

worldly success, in short and finally: the experience of God, the experience of

the descent of the Holy Spirit which became a reality in Christ through his

incarnation and his sacrifice on the cross.