The sense of the sublime and the supernatural

THE Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, celebrated on August 6, reminds us that like Christ, we are meant to be transfigured to a supernatural life with God in heaven for all eternity. While here on earth, it behooves us to be always conscious of this truth of our faith, and to develop a sense of the sublime and the supernatural amid the varying conditions of our earthly life.

That we are meant to a supernatural life is based on the fact that we have been created in God’s image and likeness. How God is, as revealed fully to us in Christ and made abidingly present in us in the Holy Spirit, is how we ought to be. We should just rev up our faith and overcome whatever disbelief or awkwardness we may have with regard to this truth of our faith about ourselves.

To be sure, having a strong and deep sense of the sublime and the supernatural in our life would keep us confident, serene, hopeful despite the drama of our life here on earth which can be quite heavy. It is our way of connecting us with God’s will and ways which can handle anything that can happen in our earthly sojourn.

We should not forget that we are meant for a supernatural life. Our human nature, with our spiritual soul that enables us to know and to love, and therefore to enter into the lives not only of others but also and most importantly, of God, urges us to develop a supernatural life.

It’s a life with God always. It just cannot be exclusively our own life, taken personally or collectively. It’s a life that depends mainly on God who gives us the grace that purifies and elevates it to his life, but it also depends on us, on our freedom to correspond to this loving will of God for us.

We have to develop a taste and even an appetite for the supernatural life with God and of things supernatural in general. In this we have to help one another, because in the end, this is our common ultimate end in life—how to live our life with God, how we can be immersed in God even as we are immersed also in the things of the world.

It’s always good that we develop and keep a sense of the sublime. After all, if we are truly consistent to our Christian faith, we know that we are meant to be God’s image and likeness, children of his, meant to share in his very own life in heaven. Ours is a dignity like no other.

And we should always be aware of it, irrespective of how our life here on earth goes. We are not meant for a dark, sad life, full of suffering only. We are meant for a sublime life with God.

To be sure, developing this sense of the sublime is not a baseless and gratuitous exercise. It is what God wants us to have, since we truly are children of his. It is not our invention. It is, first of all, his will for us to which we have to correspond.

We should not feel uneasy about this truth, because on the part of God, he will do everything to make what he wants of us to be fully realized. All we have to do is simply to go along with his will and ways as far as we can.