Reality

by Fred Vilbig


   Reality. We all know what it is, right? It’s the earth under our feet; the sky above us; the food we eat; and the warmth of the sun.

   But reality is actually much more than just these physical things. We can’t see, feel, or touch love, but can we live without it? The love of a mother for a child and of a child for its mother; the love between a husband and wife who are devoted to one another; and the love between friends. At its best, love is not about the good of the lover, but rather the good of the beloved. It is sacrificial.

   Even when we experience any of these loves in an imperfect way, we know love is still real. We know that it is missing when we don’t have it. It is almost as necessary for our human existence as the air that we breathe. Without love, our souls suffocate. Although love is not physical, it is nonetheless real.

    Each Sunday we pray the Nicene Creed. The first stanza (if you will) is as follows:

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of Heaven and earth,
of all that is visible and invisible.

  We affirm each Sunday that God is the creator. He is the only creator since He made all things. Nothing exists unless God made it. God did not make sin and evil, so in a sense, they do not exist. Instead, they are just a perversion or a twisting of reality.

  We know that love is real, but love is invisible, so there is an invisible reality. Since God is pure spirit and He is invisible, it seems to me that we could say that the spiritual reality is in a sense more real than the physical reality.

  We spend a lot of time worried about our physical reality. Yet we all know that the world around us will pass away eventually, and we will die even sooner. We spend so much time dealing with the physical reality that we neglect the spiritual. And yet, the spiritual reality is the reality that will last. It is the eternal dimension of our existence. It is not subject to time or the vicissitudes of the world around us.

  We seem to have a confused focus in our lives. Maybe we should spend more time with God coming to understand the spiritual part of our reality. And the way we do that is through prayer.

To quote Our Lady of Fatima, “Pray, pray very much.”