Divine Puzzles
by Charles Reed
(Editorial of Reflections, November 2004)
“It is the lesson of the book of Job that man is most comforted by paradoxes. Here is the very darkest and strangest of the paradoxes; and it is by all human testimony the most reassuring. I need not suggest what high and strange history awaited this paradox of the best man in the worst fortune.” – Chesterton
IN the previous issue we wrote about the vice of sloth, something that is so frequent and that causes so much harm. It also has the name of indifference, carelessness and negligence. For all these reasons, in this issue we are printing Remedies against Sloth, by Ven. Louis of Granada.
Parables and Questions
One reason Christ taught so much by using parables, is that they are similar to riddles and to puzzles: a parable is something that has to be solved, it is something that makes you think. One of the best ways of teaching a subject is to ask the pupil a question that will make him think. Christ used this way of teaching, and God himself used it: Job asked him questions and he replied, not with answers but with questions and enigmas.
Seeking Answers
“And Eliu the son of Barachel the Buzite was angry against Job, because he said he was just before God. And he was angry with his friends, because they had not found a reasonable answer, but only had condemned Job. … Then he answered and said: Now thou hast said in my hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy words: I am clean, and without sin, I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me. Because he hath found complaints against me, therefore he hath counted me for his enemy. … Now this is the thing in which thou art not justified. I will answer thee, that God is greater than man.”
Eliu proceeded to give answers, but in modern language we would not call them answers, but rather comparisons, observations and enigmas. Finally God himself answered, not with answers in the current meaning of the word, but in questions and comparisons.
“Wilt thou give strength to the horse, or clothe his neck with neighing? Wilt thou lift him up like the locusts? The glory of his nostrils is terror. He breaketh up the earth with his hoof; he pranceth boldly; he goeth forward to meet armed men. He despiseth fear; he turneth not his back to the sword. Above him shall the quiver rattle, the spear and shield shall glitter. Chasing and raging he swalloweth the ground; neither doth he make account when the noise of the trumpet soundeth. When he heareth the trumpet he saith: Ha, ha. He smelleth the battle afar off, the encouraging of the captains, and the shouting of the army. Doth the hawk wax feathered by thy wisdom, spreading her wings to the south? Will the eagle mount up at thy command; and make her nest in high places? She abideth among the rocks, and dwelleth among cragged flints, and stony hills, where there is no access. From thence she looketh for the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. Her young ones shall suck up blood: and wheresover the carcass shall be, she is immediately there.”
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
If we cannot understand about horses and eagles, we can understand even less about God: His judgments are incomprehensible, and his ways unsearchable. (Rom. 11, 33)
The Best Man in the Worst Fortune
To offer oneself as a victim is to do something similar to what Christ did: it is to deliberately offer oneself to affliction, illness, misery, abandonment, desolation, and trial. Such an offering might seem stupidity in the eyes of those who do not understand. If we saw our loved ones in danger of destruction, the best way of rescuing them, would be to do something similar to what Christ did. Christ did not save souls by miracles, he did not save them by teaching. He saved them in another way. The best way of acting is to do something similar to what he did. To be treated like Job may seem painful and humiliating, but in the end it will produce a happiness that will last forever, a never-ending triumph of glory and of joy.
“Because thou wast forsaken and hated, and there was none that passed through thee, I will make thee to be an everlasting glory, a joy unto generation and generation.” -- Isaiah 60
May it be for the glory of God
The Vergel (Garden) of the Immaculate Virgin of Guadalupe
October 31, 2004 • Christ the King
“All those who yield themselves to My way of the cross and suffering, will be blessed for all eternity.” -- April 23, 1969
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• Works of Charles Reed - • Reflections. A magazine for the latter times. 2001--2005. Charles Reed wrote the editorials.
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Essays in Reflections
Essays not in Reflections
Novel. Mount Zion Revisited.
Anthologies
Translations
Note about Mount Zion Revisited
The character named Little Bear in ch. 13, is based on three persons, in order to condense much informtion into a small space. The face of one of them bore no resemblance to the face of a bear. (He is now deceased, probably in Paradise with his mother). The other two, still living, have the face of a teddy bear. This is not an exaggeration.
Mt. Zion is a narration of a shipwreck that was not total. Just as Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday came of their shipwreck alive and kicking, so these precious little souls came out of the crucible of sorrow, shining like gold (Job 19), and at least two of them are now praising God forever, in the heavenly Zion.
And the redeemed of the Lord will come into Zion with praise.
Sorrow and mourning will flee away,
And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.
Isaiah 35
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Similarity with other novels.
Brideshead Revisited, by E. Waugh. The effects of grace, on a group of characters.
Robinson Crusoe, by Defoe. What to do when a shipwreck happens, and everything disintegrates, falls apart, and you are faced with a chaotic situation.
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