I did not recognize him, but . . .
Last Sunday our visiting celebrant Fr. Jos-Michael, in commenting on the Sunday Gospel about John the Baptist’s meeting with Jesus, told how at first John did not recognize Jesus until he saw a dove descend upon him, revealing his validity as God’s Son – and from that point on John not only recognized who he was but went on to testify, to tell the whole world about Jesus.
Our celebrant’s application, as I understood it, was that many people do not fully recognize Jesus; start out with but a superficial understanding of him. Until in some way or other they see a dove descend upon him (in other words have a sudden, often surprising appreciation of who and whence and why he is – insight!). After which they become enthusiastic believers in him and go forth to share their vision, their faith with others. Which leaves one with the question: Have there been moments in my life when I too, beyond the reach of my catechism platitudes, suddenly saw a dove descend upon Jesus, arrived at a sudden awareness of who he really is and what he’s all about that turned me into a convinced, even zealous herald of his role in history!
But as with all such episodes one can put a reverse spin to it. Take Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch. Dorothea was not yet 20 (back in the rural Britain of 1839-40) when she became fascinated with a scholar named Edward Casaubon, old enough to be her father – who was dedicated to writing the last word about Mythology – a Key to the mythical and mystical writings of the ancient past (remember Joseph Campbell?). Dorothea was endowed with a curious mind, a sharp intellect – but given the time in which she lived – she could only engage her mind beyond domesticity by an almost servile, submissive engagement with this “genius”. Indeed, she married him and spent her honeymoon in Rome while he studied in the Vatican Library every day – the dove (figuratively speaking) seen by Dorothea still testifying to Casaubon’s almost celestial intelligence.
And then the dove disappeared. He was too secretive of his work, not sharing it with her as his associate. He wouldn’t let her get too close to his subject – which her intellectual hunger craved to learn. “How was it that in the weeks since her marriage, Dorothea had not distinctly observed but felt with a stifling depression, that the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in her husband’s mind were replaced by ante-rooms and winding passages which seemed to lead nowhither?” The closer she got to him the more she herself detected errors in his conclusions, an ignorance of required languages, an inability to answer her questions, a secrecy designed to avoid the criticism of his peers, even an increasing lack of interest in or hope of mastering the vast field he had selected to unveil. For Dorothea within a few weeks “the dove” no longer hovered over Casaubon’s head. He was an ordinary, intellectually dishonest, pitiable old man.
I once – when in theological school – saw doves hovering over all my teachers’ heads, signaling their superior knowledge, rendering me servile, even fearful of their “wisdom”. I guess that happens to many of us in our earlier years in the presence of “authorities”. Until – in my case – I was sent on to study Sacred Scripture, critically and spiritually. And then all those doves I thought I had seen over the heads of many an uninspired teacher flew away – to combine into the one dove that hovered over Jesus, indeed over the whole of our biblical drama – and, as in the case of Dorothea, can bestir your own potential to become much wiser than you have ever expected to be.