Faith and Mysticism, Stories of Jesus

"For all its conviction, faith has a mystic side which realizes orthodoxy is not adequacy
but merely the least harmful betrayal of God. In its search for expression, faith ransacks
all cultural forms. Everything is pressed into service and juggled before the experienced Reality.

When faith frolics,
which seems to be what it does best,
it creates images.
This symbol making is not out to make a laborious point--
for sheer delight the mind
somersaults on the high wire.

Faith gazes into the kaleidoscope of God, Humankind, Christ, History and Nature,
and is lost in the beautiful mix.

The symbols of faith are
the result of the
Child of Wisdom
playing among the stars.

Therefore we do not abandon the Biblical Christ with his ancient theological trappings but reverence him as a metaphor of faith’s response to the historical Jesus.

P. 39. John Shea. The Challenge of Jesus. Thomas More Press, 1975.

Paschal: I once set out to read every book ever written about Jesus. I have not missed many, even the many recent ones emerging from the Jesus Seminar movement. Practically every recent book on Jesus written by scriptural scholars and others is well worth the read for this symbol of faith which remains, three score and fifteen, still my greatest fascination. Shea is always good--everything he writes. Another of my favorite is his Stories of God.