Jesus would have voluntarily renounced the fullness of his divine knowledge. We all share in that divine knowledge in some degree, as did he, nevertheless. However, while remaining fully human, he nevertheless found it difficult to understand how much more acute his own spiritual understanding was in comparison to that of his disciples, and it led to some situations I find extremely comical.
'Then Jesus said, “You know the way to the place where I am going”
Thomas said, 'Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way ?'
Jesus said :
'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.
No-one can come to the Father except through me.
If you know me, you will know the Father, too.
From this moment you know him and have seen him.'
'Philip said : Lord, show us the Father and then we shall be satisfied. 'Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me ?
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, so how can you say, 'Show us the Father ?....'
... and so on.
I think it took till the First Ecumenical Council, in about 300 years time, before the nature of the Holy Trinity had been teased out of the scriptures and officially defined. And it surely remains the ultimate mystery... how seeing Jesus was to see the Father "! And Jesus was getting quite testy about it !
I've been thinking a lot these past two days about how Francis' schismatic critics, who always accuse him of heresy and goodness knows what, when it is they who are the miscreants. And it strikes me that the problem is that, unlike good priests, age has not taught them to draw closer to God as our loving Father, but they remain stranded seemingly permanently with the 'throne-room' mindset.
There is absolutely no question that the very formal, throne-room aspect of our celebration of the Mass is the sine qua non, its foundation, its substrate, as its antiquity would suggest. 'To fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' However, the very purpose of Jesus' incarnation, life, death, burial and ascension was to draw us close to God as nothing less than infinitely-cherished sons and daughters ; and not only are both of those aspects essential, the former must lead to the latter, if we are to see any of growth in the Spirit we are called seek.
There is a place for rote prayer in our worship. If we had to concentrate entirely on the words of our prayers, we would not be able to meditate on the sacred mysteries of the Rosary, for instance, and would probably undervalue our beautiful litanies. Nevertheless, surely it was the very personal demeanour towards God of St Padre Pio, for example, that made his Masses so special.