Pinagsisikapan natin, sa ating katutubong pagmumuni-muni at isip, na humantong sa isang matinong pagkilala sa pag-iral at katotohanan ng Diyos. Marami ngang landas na maaring tahakin, ngunit pumuli tayo ng tatlo, at sa pamamagitan ng tatlong landas na ito— madalas man magkamali at madapa-- maaari nating makilala, sa pamamagitan ng ating isip at diwa, ang Diyos, “mula sa malayo.”

1. Diyos sa Proportio at Participatio. Sa pagtanaw at pagdanas sa pagmemeron ng lahat ng sanlinikha, nakikilala natin ang Diyos bilang siyang Mismong Meron na nagpapa-iral sa lahat lahat ng nagmemeron sa pamamagitan ng proportio at participatio. Tumutungo ang buong sangkameronan sa Kanyang kanila pinagmulan, at sabay sinasalamin Siya sa mahiwagang “paggaganito ng bawat nagmemeron.” Sabi nga ni Hopkins,

I say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst— for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

2. Diyos na Siyang Nagpapameron. Nakikilala rin natin ang Diyos bilang may poder sa meron na siyang nagpapameron sa mga marupok na linalang na “maaaring hindi magmeron.” Ang Diyos na siyang lumalaban sa mismong kawalan upang pameronin ang bawat linalang sa bawat oras at sa bawat sandali. Sa ganitong paraan, masasabing nakabitin ang lahat sa kanya— sapagka't wala sa mga linikhang linalang ang kakayahan at poder sa meron. At ang kilos na ito ay kilos ng pag-ibig.

3. Diyos sa Kaayusan ng Lahat-lahat. Sa wakas, nakikita din natin, sa ating pagtanaw sa daigdig, ang isang malalim kaayusan na siyang tumuturo sa pag-iral ng isang makapangyarihang Diyos. Ang kaayusan na ito'y lampas sa anumang sistema ng agham o konsepto ng isipan, at sa isang tahimik na paraan-- kung makikinig lamang tayo-- nararamdaman natin ang lagda ng Diyos sa likod ng kaayusang ito. Kung kaya't kahit sa gitna ng nagmimistulang kaguluhan, may nananaig pa rin na mahiwagang kaayusan.

The English poet John Milton once wrote that those also serve who only stand and wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait render the highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline, more self-control and emotional maturity, more unshakeable faith in our cause, more unwavering hope in the future, more sustaining love in our hearts than all the great deeds of derring-do that go by the name of action.

Waiting is a mystery— a natural sacrament of life. There is a meaning hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery because there is so much waiting in our lives.

Everyday is filled with those little moments of waiting— testing our patience and our nerves, schooling us in our self-control— pasensya na lang. We wait for meals to be served, for a letter to arrive, for a friend, concerts and circuses. Our airline terminals, railway stations, and bus depots are temples of waiting filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved one— or wait in sadness to say goodbye and to give that last wave of hand. We wait for birthdays and vacations; we wait for Christmas. We wait for spring to come or autumn— for the rains to begin or stop.

And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next step. We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion. We wait for success, and recognition. We wait to grow up— to reach the stage where we make our own decision.

We cannot remove this waiting from our lives. It is part of the tapestry of living—the fabric in which the threads are woven that tell the story of our lives.

Yet the current philosophies would have us forget the need to wait. “Grab all the gusto you can get.” So reads one of America’s great beer advertisements— Get it now. Instant pleasure— instant transcendence. Don’t wait for anything. Life is short— eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you’ll die. And so they rationalize us into accepting unlicensed and irresponsible freedom— premarital sex and extramarital affairs— they warn against attachment and commitment, against expecting anything of anybody, or allowing them to expect anything of us, against vows and promises, against duty and responsibility, against dropping any anchors in the currents of our life that will cause us to hold and to wait.

This may be the correct prescription for pleasure— but even that is fleeting and doubtful. What was it Shakespeare said about the mad pursuit of pleasure? “Past reason hunted, and once had, past reason hated.” Now if we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh, souls as well as heart, we have to learn to love someone else other than ourselves.

For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a mystery brushing by our face everyday like stray wind or a leaf falling from a tree. Anyone who has ever loved knows how much waiting goes into it, how much waiting is important for love to grow, to flourish through a lifetime.

Why is this so? Why can’t we have love right now— two years, three years, five years— and seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree should take so long to bear fruit, the seed to flower, carbon to change into a diamond.

There is no simple answer, no more than there is to life’s demands: having to say goodbye to someone you love because either you or they have already made other commitments, or because they have to grow and find the meaning of their own lives, having yourself to leave home and loved ones to find your path. Goodbyes, like waiting, are also sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth— the budding, the flowering of love needs patient waiting. We have to give each other time to grow. There is no way we can make someone else truly love us or we love them, except through time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting— of being present without making demands or asking rewards. There is nothing harder to do than this. It tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But there is life in the gift we give.

So lovers wait for each other until they can see things the same way, or let each other freely see things in quite different ways. What do we lose when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the balance and intimacy of the way they were? They have to wait— in silence— but still be present to each other until the pain subsides to an ache and then only a memory, and the threads of the tapestry can be woven together again in a single love story.

What do we lose when we refuse to wait? When we try to find short cuts through life, when we try to incubate love and rush blindly and foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough to assume? We lose the hope of ever truly loving or being loved. Think of all the great love stories of history and literature. Isn’t it of their very essence that they are filled with the strange but common mystery— that waiting is part of the substance, the basic fabric— against which the story of that true love is written?

How can we ever find either life of love if we are too impatient to wait for it?