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March 5
Crispus Attucks, Karl Rahner, and Johann Jakob Wettstein
David Barnhart
March 05, 2025
Bricks, Ixiamas, Bolivia. 2008. Own photo.
On this day in 1770, the Boston Massacre took place, when five American protesters were gunned down by British troops. Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and indigenous American parentage, is therefore often referred to as the first person killed in the American Revolution.
Today is also the birthday of Karl Rahner, in 1904. Rahner was a Jesuit priest and theologian who emphasized the “absolute mystery” of God, and that the fulfillment of human beings was the “self-communication” of God.
It is also the birthday, in 1693, of Johann Jakob Wettstein, an early New Testament translator and critical scholar who pointed out discrepancies between the ancient Greek and Latin manuscripts.
Reflection:
Karl Rahner wrote:
Everything else exists so that this one thing might be: the eternal miracle of infinite Love. And so God makes a creature whom he can love: he creates man. He creates him in such a way that he can receive this Love which is God himself, and that he can and must at the same time accept it for what it is: the ever astounding wonder, the unexpected, unexacted gift.
and
In the ultimate depths of his being man knows nothing more surely than that his knowledge, that is, what is called knowledge in everyday parlance, is only a small island in a vast sea that has not been traveled. It is a floating island, and it might be more familiar to us than the sea, but ultimately it is borne by the sea and only because it is can we be borne by it. Hence the existential question for the knower is this: Which does he love more, the small island of his so-called knowledge or the sea of infinite mystery?
Prayer: Love Who Holds the Universe Together, envelop us in your mystery and show us your glory. Help us to treat each other and our world with the reverence we give to all that is holy. Amen.