The Journey to Interiority

     Maurice Zundel, a Swiss priest who died in 1975[i], complained that the great issue of our time had been entirely overlooked by the Church in its attempt to come to terms with the issues of the modern world. He considered it useless to update the Church’s teaching without coming to terms with what God we are talking about.  He was all the more passionate about this because he saw most Christians turning to a “false God” who was “out there” and that was powerful, demanding, and the source of religious laws that imposed themselves on us. He said that, if this were the true God, the criticism of religion and the rejection of a God who lords it over us would be entirely justified.
     Over and over again, he insisted that God is never “up above," wielding power over us.  He used the doctrine of the Trinity to explain how God is a relationship of love pouring itself out. God is not self-sufficient, caught up in a narcisistic self-regard, needing no one and unconcerned with anything except his or herself. For Zundel, this would be a God who is preposterous. Yet, he said, this is the God most people worship.