Fr Ennio Mantovani SVD 7 Quantum physics should have warned us that God is Love (L), a creative and sustaining Reality who is not bound by time and space. Jesus promised the Spirit who would guide us towards the full truth. We are on the way. If we do not change, it means that we are lagging behind, that we do not trust that arm that guides us forward. We grew up in the world of classic physics, however, not too many years ago we moved, without realizing, into the world of quantum physics. We could not use our TV sets, we needed to buy new ones, analogue had to change to digital, our gadgetry adapted to this change, often without ourselves being aware of it, of the epochal change that was taking place. Our faith continued in the old world. Quantum did not affect it. That our faith was not a platonic idea somewhere up there in the Platonic universe, but expression of our daily life, of our cultural upbringing, of the inculturation of our faith in our ‘Weltanschaung’- our ways of seeing the world around us - did not even dawn on us. Our salvation was by no means in danger, in the sense that our personal relationship to God, was not affected, at least not for my generation. Our attendance at Church was not affected. The old Tradition, as a matter of fact, gave us security. The Spirit, however, was urging us forward. The quantum world opened up great possibilities for our faith. Just a few examples. Without any problem we say: Jesus went up to heaven, we celebrated Mary’s Assumption into heaven. Gagarin, the first astronaut is supposed to have remarked that in his exploration of space, he did not find the heavens. When we fly, the outside temperature is -40 degrees Celsius. When we climb the Alps at 3000m - in central Europe where I was born –it is already zero degrees. Have you ever thought about these facts? We seniors were quick in suppressing those doubts of faith. Maybe we thought that we were dealing with mysteries. As a friend of mine once told me: keep searching, I close all those questions into what myself I call the Mystery of the Church. Unfortunately, the younger generation who went through senior High School have been told not to learn by heart - as we did - but to ask questions; to research. That’s maybe one of the reasons that once they finish High School in our Catholic schools they desert the Church. Statistics force us to reflect. Latest Census 2021: 40% no religious affiliation, from the almost 30% in the 2016 Census. In 5 years, a loss of 10% - mostly young people. Quantum physics should have warned us that God is Love (L), a creative and sustaining Reality who is not bound by time and space. L is everywhere and is eternal. We do not need to search for L behind the clouds. L does not sit anywhere; the L is looking for us as our Abba, and will never give up. Jesus is not sitting at his right hand as in a Royal Palace. Jesus lives among us: where two or three are gathered in my name I am among them (Mt18:20). Jesus knows and loves each of us. He is looking for us and not the other way around. We cannot take seriously these words of Jesus otherwise we will get confused: what’s the difference between that presence and the one in the tabernacle? In our theology we distinguish between memory and memorial. We remember an event in history which is past, and we celebrate the memorial of an historical event that somehow becomes present. We remember Jesus’ passion, an event that happened just over two thousand years ago but the memorial of his last supper becomes present for us in the Eucharist. We eat his body and drink his blood. Quantum physics tells us that at his death Jesus left the limitations of creation - his physical body - and became a reality outside, not limited, by space and time. He is here and everywhere. I do not need to be in a chapel to be close to Him, he is
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