This is why when Moses speaks to God in the Burning Bush, as we hear in our first reading; he is called twice, something that meant he was being called to an important task, since very rarely is someone’s name called twice in the Bible.
What’s more, is that when Moses asked the name of the one who was sending him he was given a peculiar name, “I AM who am.” It is a name that, as the Catechism says: “Is at once a name revealed and something like a refusal of a name...infinitely above everything that we can understand or say.”
For, it was simply four words: “I AM who am,” but words that are more than a name, words that refer to a living presence, in essence, it is the threshold where language meets eternity.
It may sound deeply mystical or theological, but this is what the saints constantly wrestled with, how to explain God with a language that can’t convey who He is. That is why this name, as strange as it sounds, is a revelation of the inner being of God. It is His way of revealing the very mystery of Himself to us through the language that we have.
Because by those four words, we know that God is, and what that means is that He is always present, He is always with us, He also, therefore, has no beginning or end, because He is not just I AM, but I AM who am. While it sounds circular, it means, as we hear elsewhere, that God is truly the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, so that if it sounds circular it is circular in the sense that God is eternal, that just as circle has no beginning or end, neither does God.
However, lest our only understanding of God be merely theological and philosophical, He also reminds that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is, He is also a personal God, He is a Father of the nations and a Father of those who founded the nations.
So that, while God is a transcendent, eternal God, He is also a God who, at the same time, is with us and near us always. He is not sitting on a cloud watching the world from afar, He is a God who cares about every one of His children, to the point that He in the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity became man and dwelt among us.
So that, the same God who created the universe, the same God, who has no beginning or end, is the same God who took upon our sins, died and rose so that we can be with Him again in Heaven.
The same God who will be present upon that altar in a few minutes. In fact, when I was a teaching, a student came up to me before Mass and he asked: “do you feel it when you consecrate bread and wine?” And, I told him that while I do, there is nothing in this world, no language that I can speak that could come close to explaining the experience.
This is why this revelation to Moses is so beautiful, so powerful and so amazing, because it shows us not just who God is, but His desire to reveal Himself to us, His desire to be with us always.
He is not saying “I was” or “I will be” but “I AM.” He is saying that He is always present, He is always among us, so that even when we leave this Church, He doesn’t stop existing, He doesn’t stop being present to us, near to us at our side, He is still always near us, only spiritually instead of physically like He is in communion when we receive the Eucharist or on the altar or in that tabernacle.
And, what’s more, because He has revealed His very name to us, it means that He wants us to know Him better, it means that we are meant to grow in our relationship with Him. And, because He is God, He demands something else as well, that we try to live a life worthy of His presence, that we seek to become holy and that, as it says in our second reading, we never content ourselves thinking we stand secure taking care that we never fall.
However, if it happens that we do fall, God in His infinite love and mercy, as a compassionate Father has given us the means in which to be reconciled back to Him, and He does so by that confessional right there.
He does so, by allowing any priest to be able to absolve you of your sins. And, that absolution is not just a mere blessing, that absolution, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, uses words that, literally, erase sin from our conscience, it turns the barren soil of our souls, dried out, as it were, by sin and fear, and cultivates it, fertilizes it, and makes it bear the fruits of the same Spirit, makes it bear the life of God upon it.
So, that, in the end, when we leave that confessional we leave not as the fig tree but as the burning bush, as one on fire as one who knows that the same God who called Moses forth is the same God who calls us anew, a second time, after our baptism, at that very moment. The same God who allows His presence to dwell on that altar, to be felt in our lives, the same God who turns the very ground where we stand holy, He who calls Himself the great I AM, He, who tells us to, indeed, call Him Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Add a comment