Finding the Infinite in the Finite
Michiel Peeters - “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh…. What God has joined together, no human being must separate…. Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
How is it possible to remain with one’s wife, or one’s husband, for one’s whole life? Paradoxically, one can stay with one’s husband or wife only when one discovers, in experience, that one is not made for a wife or a husband.
We are invited to discover in experience that we are made for a relationship, absolutely, a company, sure… that we are even made as a relationship, as a company—surely, man is not made for being alone!—but this company must be infinite, otherwise it is not enough for our hearts!
(If we do not learn this from experience, that we have an infinite need, that even the most beautiful woman or the best man on earth can never fulfill us, our lives get really complicated!)
The greatest of Dutch poets, Joost van den Vondel, wrote in his play Adam, how Eve, the first woman, on the day of her marriage, tells Adam, her spouse: “’k Word hevig naar de bron des heils gedreven / die mijnen dorst alleen kan lessen. Laat me gaan”, which means: “I am strongly driven to the source of salvation / which, only, can quench my thirst. Let me go”. On the point of marrying, she strongly feels her heart not being made for Adam, and him not being able to quench her thirst.
So what? Should she not marry? Not necessarily. Learning, by going a road, the truth of our hearts (that they are made for something infinite, not for something finite), we can, with God’s help, live (as opposed to survive) in the circumstances
we are in. In Vondel’s play, Adam replies to Eve: “This—your marriage—is your element”. It is not your goal, it is not your destiny, it is not the terminus of the relationship that constitutes you, but can be the place, the company, the road, where you can live your free relationship with the infinite. With me, your husband, as a sign of the infinite. Knowing what our hearts are made for, recognizing the great Company, we can embrace the small company the Mystery gives us to walk in life. Only when we see our man or woman for what they really are: gifts of the Mystery, signs of the Mystery, signs of Mystery’s love for me, of Mystery’s company, companion on a road towards my destiny, we can truly embrace them, as they are, for what they are.
In a moment we will baptize Maxim, who, small as he is, has the same heart as all of us. And, like each of us, he is called to discover in his life that he is made for a free relationship with the infinite, that to live means to live that relationship.
No man has lived that relationship so much, so freely, and therefore made it so visible, attractive, and possible for us, as Jesus Christ, who will now take Maxim by the hand and make him participant of his own life and path. We all are called to help Maxim by the road we go ourselves. For education, it is self-communication, communication of the way we are in reality, of what permits us to live, and of the road we go on ourselves.
By Fr Michiel Peeters, Tilburg University Chaplaincy.
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