Today’s second Mass reading comes from the Letter to the Hebrews. In it we are told that “[n]o creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eye of him to whom we must render an account.”
This strikes me as one of those statements we know but don’t fully comprehend. At the level of our intellect of course we know that “omniscient” God sees all and knows all. We know quite easily in our heads that there is nothing concealed from God, that all “is naked and exposed” to God’s eye.
However, I don’t think that is a truth we fully embrace. For myself, I know there are many things I’m willing to lay out on the table and examine with God. To look squarely at them in God’s presence and under God’s penetrating gaze.
But I also know that there are other things as to which that is not so easy. The image I use, which I often share with others, is that of rocks in my pockets. I reach inside the pocket, touch a particular rock and say, “OK, God, we can pull this one out and look at it together.” But then there are those other rocks in there. The ones that I reach down and gingerly touch and as soon as I do I push them back down into the furthest reaches of the pocket. I feel myself saying, “Lord, we’re so close in so many areas, we’ve worked out so many things together. So we can leave this little rock hidden away. We don’t really need to pull it out and look at it. We’re doing just fine without this one, aren’t we?”
In those moments, I may “know” that no matter how far I push that rock into my pocket, it is really “naked and exposed” to the eyes of God, but that is not the way I behave. I act as though there is something I can hide from God…and from myself.
It is good to hear these words from Hebrews and remind ourselves that whatever it is we have hidden deep in our pockets, it is already open to God. So we might as well put it on the table and look at it with him.
Creo en Dios! 