Coming To Know God

Catechism Paragraphs 26 – 73

Section One:  “I Believe”

“The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself.  Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.  27   Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is ‘in the image of God’ (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created ‘male and female;’ (IV) God established him in his friendship.  355   But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, ‘an upright heart,’ as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.”  30   (The bold print is, IMO, a very important teaching of the Catholic Church.  We are all responsible to each other.) 

“Why do we seek God? God has placed in our hearts a longing to seek and find him.  St. Augustine says, ‘You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’  We call this longing for God è Religion.  A person is not completely himself until he has found God.”  YOUCAT Q 3     

Ways of Coming to Know God:   “Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him.  These ‘ways’ of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure:  the physical world and the human person.  31   The World:  starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.  ‘Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. (Rom 1:19-20)  32   The Human Person:  With his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God’s existence.  The soul, the ‘seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material,’ can have its origin only in God.  33   Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God.  But for man to be able to enter into a real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith.  The proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.”  35

“Why do people deny that God exists, if they can know him by reason?  To know the invisible God is a great challenge for the human mind.  Many are scared off by it.  Another reason why some to not want to know God is because they would then have to change their life.  Anyone who says that the question about God is meaningless because it cannot be answered is making things too easy for himself.  YOUCAT Q 5

 The Knowledge of God According to the Church:  Man stands in need of being enlightened by God’s revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding, but also ‘about those religious and moral truths which of themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reason, so that even in the present condition of the human race, they can be known by all men with ease, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error.”  38 

How Can We Speak About God?   “In defending the ability of human reason to know God, the Church is expressing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to all men and with all men, and therefore of dialogue with other religions, with philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists.  39   All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God.  The manifold perfections of creatures – their truth, their goodness, their beauty – all reflect the infinite perfection of God.  41   God transcends all creatures.  We must therefore continually purify our language in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God – ‘the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable’ – with our human representations.”  42

“By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works.  But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possible arrive at by his own powers:  the order of divine Revelation.  Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man.  This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men.  50   God, who ‘dwells in unapproachable light,’ wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely created, in order to adopt them as his sons in his only-begotten Son.  By revealing himself God wishes to make them capable of responding to him, and of knowing him, and of loving him far beyond their own natural capacity.  52   The divine plan of Revelation involves a specific divine pedagogy:  God communicates himself to man gradually (in history).  He prepares him to welcome by stages the supernatural Revelation that is to culminate in the person and mission of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.”  53  

Stages of Revelation:  “Wishing to open up the way to heavenly salvation, he manifested himself to our first parents from the very beginning.  He invited them to intimate communion with himself and clothed them with resplendent grace and justice.  54  This revelation was not broken off by our first parents’ sin.  ‘After the fall, (God) buoyed them up with the hope of salvation, by promising redemption; and he has never ceased to show his solicitude for the human race. (cf Gen 3:15, Rom 2:6-7).  55    In order to gather together a scattered humanity God calls Abram from his country, his kindred, and his father’s house, and makes him Abraham, that is, ‘the father of a multitude of nations.’  ‘In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.’  59   The people descended from Abraham would be the trustees of the promise made to the patriarchs, the chosen people, called to prepare for that day when God would gather all his children into the unity of the Church.  (Rom 11:28, Jn 11:52) 60   After the patriarchs, God formed Israel as his people by the freeing them from slavery in Egypt.  He established with them the covenant of Mount Sinai and, through Moses, gave them his law so that they would recognize him and serve him as the one living and true God.  62   Through the prophets, God forms his people in the hope of salvation, in the expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their hearts.  (Isa 2:2-4, Jer 31:31-4)” 64  

“Why did God have to show himself in order for us to be able to know what he is like?  Man can know by reason that God exists, but not what God is really like.  God did not have to reveal himself to us.  But he did it – out of love.  Just as in human love one can know something about the beloved person only if he opens his heart to us, so too we know something about God’s inmost thoughts only because the eternal and mysterious God has opened himself to us out of love. “  YOUCAT Q 8

“In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son (Heb 1:1-2).  St John of the Cross, among others, commented strikingly on Hebrews 1:1-2:  ‘In giving us his Son, his only Word, he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word – and he has no more to say … because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son.  Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.’  65   The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries.  (This is where the teaching authority of the Church comes in.) 66       

Next week will be paragraphs 74 – 141, covering The Apostolic Tradition and its relationship to Sacred Scripture. 

How Can I Do God's Will?

Catechism Paragraphs 2822 – 2865 (end)

These are the final petitions of the Our Father, and the Church’s ascribed meaning.

Thy Will Be Done on Earth as It Is In Heaven   “Our Father ‘desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’  His commandment is ‘that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.’ 2822   ‘Although he was a Son, (Jesus) learned obedience through what he suffered.’  How much more reason have we sinful creatures to learn obedience – we who in him have become children of adoption.  We ask our Father to unite our will to his Son’s in order to fulfill his will, his plan of salvation for the life of the world.  We can surrender our will to him and decide to choose what his Son has always chosen: to do what is pleasing to the Father. He commands each of the faithful who prays to do so universally, for the whole world.  For he did not say ‘thy will be done in me or in us.’ But ‘on earth,’ the whole earth, so that error may be banished from it, virtue flourish on it, and earth no longer differ from heaven.” 2825     

Personally, I think that is one of the things which took me longest to internalize into my heart, the notion that a) we are called to grow in holiness our whole life – and the associated notion that we’ll never get there, perfect holiness nor perfect happiness, in this life, and b) that we can get closer to heaven while here on earth, and that it is when we live in Christ – doing as He did, the Father’s will.  When the world lures me, myself and I, all of me, into yearning for things “I” want and making me sad over things “I” don’t have, I’m making no progress toward holiness or heaven or happiness, yet it just initially seems so illogical: When I’m trying to make myself happier, I’m growing farther from happiness??  Yet, when I put myself first, that is what I am doing.  Understanding the truth of that was a great learning:  “Thy” will be done, not mine.

“By prayer we can discern ‘what is the will of God’ and obtain the endurance to do it.  Jesus teaches us that one enters the kingdom of heaven not by speaking words, but by doing ‘the will of my Father in heaven.’” 2826

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread  “’Give us’: The trust of children who look to their Father for everything beautiful.  Jesus teaches us this petition, because it glorifies our Father by acknowledging how good he is, beyond all goodness.  But this ‘us’ also recognizes him as the Father of all men and we pray to him for them all, in solidarity with their needs and sufferings.  2828-9   But the presence of those who hunger because they lack bread opens up another profound meaning of this petition.  The drama of hunger in the world calls Christians who pray sincerely to exercise responsibility toward their brethren.  This petition of the Lord’s Prayer cannot be isolated from the parables of the poor man Lazarus and of the Last Judgment.  2831 

‘Pray and work.’ (from the Rule of St. Benedict)  ‘Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.’  Even when we have done our work, the food we receive is still a gift from our Father; it is good to ask him for it with thanksgiving, as Christian families do when saying grace at meals.  2834   (There also is this) specifically Christian sense of this fourth petition concerning the Bread of Life: The Word of God accepted in faith, the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist.’  2835   The Lord addresses an invitation to us, urging us to receive him in the sacrament of the Eucharist: ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’ 1384   Daily: Taken in the qualitative sense, it signifies what is necessary for life, and more broadly every good thing sufficient for subsistence.  Taken literally, it refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the ‘medicine of immortality,’ without which we have no life within us.  Finally in this connection, its heavenly meaning is evident: ‘this day’ is the Day of the Lord, the day of the feast of the kingdom, anticipated in the Eucharist that is already the foretaste of the kingdom to come.  For this reason it is fitting for the Eucharistic liturgy to be celebrated each day.”  2836

And Forgive Us Our Trespasses, As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us   This petition is astonishing.  If it consisted only of the first phrase, it might have been included, implicitly, in the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, since Christ’s sacrifice is ‘that sins may be forgiven.’  But, according to the second phrase, our petition will not be heard unless we have first met a strict requirement.  Our petition looks to the future, but our response must come first, for the two parts are joined by the single word ‘as’”.  2838   Now – and this is daunting – this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us.  Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see.  In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace.  2840   Christian prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies, transfiguring the disciple by configuring him to his Master.  Forgiveness is the high-point of Christian prayer; only hearts attuned to God’s compassion can receive the gift of prayer.  Forgiveness also bears witness that, in our world, love is stronger than sin.” 2844

And Lead Us Not Into Temptation   “It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both ‘do not allow us to enter into temptation’ and ‘do not let us yield to temptation.’  God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one, on the contrary, he wants to set us free from evil.  2846   The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation, which leads to sin and death.  We must also discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation.  Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a ‘delight to the eyes’ and desirable, when in reality its fruit is death.  2847   ‘Lead us not into temptation’ implies a decision of the heart: ‘For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also … No one can serve two masters.’  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it.  2848  

But Deliver Us From Evil   The last petition to our Father is also included in Jesus’ prayer: ‘I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.’  It touches each of us personally, but it is always ‘we’ who pray, in communion with the whole Church, for the deliverance of the whole human family.  2850   When we ask to be delivered from the Evil One, we pray as well to be freed from all evils, present, past, and future, of which he is the author or instigator.  In this final petition, the Church brings before the Father all the distress of the world.  Along with deliverance from the evils that overwhelm humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance in expectation of Christ’s return.  2854

The Final Doxology:  The final doxology, ‘For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever,’ takes up again, by inclusion, the first three petitions to our Father: the glorification of his name, the coming of his reign, and the power of his saving will.  But these prayers are not proclaimed as adoration and thanksgiving, as in the liturgy of heaven.  Then, after the prayer is over you say ‘Amen’, which means ‘So be it,’ thus ratifying with our ‘Amen’ what is contained in the prayer that God has taught us.”  2855-6

This concludes this last section of the Catechism.  Next time I’ll be starting at the beginning section, which was skipped at the start of this study.  I’ll conclude with the doctrine of the Creed, a long study, which should take me near to the end of this Year of Faith in the Church. 

The Lord's Prayer -- I

Catechism Paragraphs 2761 – 2821

The Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers … In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired.  This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them.    – St. Thomas Aquinas

“This indivisible gift of the Lord’s words and of the Holy Spirit who gives life to them in the hearts of believers has been received and lived by the Church from the beginning.  The first communities prayed the Lord’s Prayer three times a day.  2767  

Our Father Who art in Heaven:  “I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty (2Cor 6:18).  “Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord’s Prayer, we must humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn from this world.  Humility makes us recognize that “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.  God our Father transcends the categories of the created world.  To impose our own ideas in this area ‘upon him’ would be to fabricate idols to adore or pull down.  To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son revealed him to us.  2779   When we pray to the Father, we are in communion with him and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  We can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life by adopting us as his children in his only Son: by Baptism, he incorporates us into the Body of his Christ.  2781-2   The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life.  Praying to our Father should develop in us two fundamental dispositions:  First, the desire to become like him: we ought to behave as sons of God, and Second, a humble and trusting heart that enables us to turn and become like children: for it is to little children that Father is revealed” (Mt 11:25) 2785  

“The Church is this new communion of God and men.  United with the only Son, who has become the firstborn among many brethren, she is in communion with one and the same Father in one and the same Holy Spirit.  In praying ‘our’ Father, each of the baptized is praying in communion.  For this reason, in spite of the divisions among Christians, this prayer to ‘our’ Father remains our common patrimony.  2791    Praying ‘our’ Father opens to us the dimensions of his love revealed in Christ praying with and for all who do not yet know him, so that Christ may gather into one the children of God.” (Jn 11:52) 2793   

Who art in Heaven:  “This biblical expression does not mean a place, but a way of being:  it does not mean that God is distant, but majestic.  Our Father is not ‘elsewhere’: he transcends everything.  “Our Father who art in heaven” is rightly understood to mean that God is in the hearts of the just, as in his holy temple.  At the same time, it means that those who pray should desire the one they invoke to dwell in them --- St. Augustine.  2794   The symbol of the heavens refers us back to the mystery of the covenant we are living when we pray to our Father.  He is in heaven, his dwelling place; the Father’s house is our homeland.  Sin has exiled us from the land of the covenant, but conversion of heart enables us to return to the Father, to heaven.  In Christ, then, heaven and earth are reconciled, for the Son alone ‘descended from heaven’ and causes us to ascend there with him, by his Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.” 2795 

Hallowed be Thy Name:  “The term ‘to hallow’ is to be understood here not primarily in its causative sense (only God makes holy), but above all in an evaluative sense: to recognize as holy.  In adoration, this invocation is sometimes understood as praise and thanksgiving.  But this petition is here taught to us by Jesus as an optative: a petition, a desire, and an expectation in which God and man are involved.  Asking the Father that his name be made holy draws us into his plan of loving kindness for the fullness of time, that we might be holy and blameless before him in love.  2807   In the waters of Baptism, we have been ‘washed … sanctified … justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God’ (1Cor 1:30).  Our Father calls us to holiness in the whole of our life, and since he is the source of our life in Christ Jesus, both his glory and our life depend on the hallowing of his name in us and by us.  2813    God should be hallowed in us through our actions, for God’s name is blessed when we live well.”  2814  

Thy Kingdom Come:  The Kingdom of God lies ahead of us.  It is brought near in the Word incarnate, it is proclaimed throughout the whole Gospel, and it has come in Christ’s death and Resurrection.  The Kingdom of God has been coming since the Last Supper and, in the Eucharist, it is in our midst.  The kingdom will come in glory when Christ hands it over to his Father. 2817   In the Lord’s Prayer, ‘thy kingdom come’ refers primarily to the final coming of the reign of God through Christ’s return.  But, far from distracting the Church from her mission in this present world, this desire commits her to it all the more strongly.  2818   By a discernment according to the Spirit, Christians have to distinguish between the growth of the Reign of God and the progress of the culture and society in which they are involved.  Man’s vocation to eternal life does not suppress, but actually reinforces, his duty to put into action in this world the energies and means received from the Creator to serve justice and peace.”  2820    

“Human fathers and mothers often distort the image of a kind, fatherly God.  Our Father in heaven, however, is not the same as our experiences of human parents.  We must purify our image of God from all our own ideas so as to be able to encounter him with unconditional trust.  Even individuals who have been raped by their own father can learn to pray the Our Father.  Often it is their task in life to allow themselves to experience a love that was cruelly refused them by others, but that nevertheless exists in a marvelous way, beyond all human imagining.”  YCAT Q 516 

The Christian does not say ‘my Father’ but ‘our Father’, even in the secrecy of a closed room because he knows that in every place, on every occasion, he is a member of the one and same Body.  – Pope Benedict XVI

There remains one more section of the Our Father prayer to complete, and then this section of the catechism will be complete.  Next time I will be reading paragraphs 2822 – 2865, concluding the Our Father section.