God Reveals Himself Gradually

I want to share a gift God gave me. Because of the influence of a priest online (Fr. Scott Brossart), I have started, in addition to reading the daily scriptural readings of the mass, reading the Bible from the beginning to end. I am up to Numbers. 2 things have struck me. 1, how very Catholic the spiritual life of the Israelites is! I mean, I earned a theology degree in college, and I know I studied it, but apparently I forgot a lot. “The bread of the presence” was kept in the tabernacle along with the ark of the covenant. There was a sanctuary lamp indicating God’s presence (there is one in every Catholic Church by the tabernacle). The vestments of the priests, and the veil of the tabernacle, all detailed and beautiful. They had feast days galore, some of which were celebrated for weeks. These are all images pointing towards our present day Catholic liturgical life. The second thing I noticed though, was how much sin God allowed. Oh boy. And it started to get to me. I mean slavery? polygamy? concubines?! taking women and children “left over” in war?! and I remembered a professor at Steubenville saying God had to reveal himself to us incrementally, “bite sized” pieces, if you will, to His people, for them to be in a place to receive it. But I was still upset. So I said “God I really wish I could talk to a knowledgeable priest about this.” That night, another priest I follow on Facebook (Fr. Jacob Boddicker S. J.) went live, answering any questions people had. So I said, oh, I have a question 🙋🏻‍♀️😬 and waited for his reply. His answer was so good. He talked about how the Israelites had gone so far away from God, from Adam onward, and just fresh out of a pagan culture (Egyptian) that He had to start with the basics. The biggest sin being idolatry was given pretty severe punishment. As a father, God had to say, ok, how can I begin to bring them back, in a way they can comprehend and accept? Then. Oh my. He made the comparison to what we do as parents with rules. Particularly with toddlers. We have to decide what they are really capable of at this stage in their life. We let them get away with a lot. You can’t talk to a 2 year old about murder. or even what it means to love someone for that matter. But as they grow older, mature, you expect more, reveal more. I thought about how my 4 yr. old gets away with well, a lot. And it all became clear to me. 🤦🏻‍♀️ and I decided not to judge God’s parenting skills anymore. 😑 Jesus began to clarify more during His ministry about the moral life, but when He ascended, He left us the Church to continue to guide us and be a moral compass. Thanks be to God!