Searching for God and Finding Him

In today's first reading, Acts 17: 15, 22-18:1, St. Paul enters the center of a pagan culture, the Areopagus.  He does not outright challenge the Athenians for being worshipers of idols.  He walks around looking at all of the shrines in the area and discovered one that said "To an Unknown God."  He then says to them:  "What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.  the God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and death, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives everyone life and breath and everything. He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us us. For 'In him we live and move and have our being....'"  Paul  then goes on to invite the Athenians to repent and speaks to them about Jesus and his resurrection.  Hearing the word "resurrection,"  many of the Athenians walked away, having nothing to do with Paul.

How often are you and I not seeking God but not knowing that we are engaged in that search.  That which we believe will "save" us does not, in fact, and so we increase our obsession and/or our addictive consumption of more and more of that which we think will be the answer to our problems. Our all-consuming search for God-substitutes takes possession of us! We continue looking outside of ourselves for God, not realizing that "in him we live and move and have our being."  Nor do we open up the Scriptures or sit silently in our churches or "drink" in the beauty of nature--a "sacrament" of God's presence--or engage consistently in self-sacrificing love for our spouses, our children, our community members. 

In some cases, persons who misplace their hunger for God onto material things, onto food and drink, onto one relationship after another and another and another also avoid participating regularly in the liturgical celebrations of their parishes, where, at every Mass, at the consecration of the bread and wine,  the Paschal Lamb offers Himself to the Father and gives Himself to us as food in the Holy Eucharist, a food that will truly satisfy our longing to be one with the Lord, will give us a peace that the world cannot give and will save us from falling for Satan's lies that we can be like gods if only we do this or that, secure this or that, possess this or that, acquire this or that and so on and on and on--a lie Adam and Eve fell into!

Lord, you alone are God and there is no other! And, yes, in You I live and move and have my being. You are enough for me.  Without You I can do nothing and am nothing. Without You I would not exist.  May I become comfortable with no-thing-ness and rest in You alone! 

Growing Close to or Distancing Oneself from God?

Today's first reading, Exodus 32: 7-14, tells us the story of the chosen people's worship of the golden calf, believing that it was through the power of this molten image that they were brought out of Egypt, where they had been treated as slaves. Concerning the molten image, Aaron says to the people: "This is your God,  O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." 

Imagine God's anger! How insulting to God, who had worked multiple wonders to free them from being slaves to the Egyptians.  How could they abandon God so quickly?  How could they turn away from Him and sacrifice to a molten image? In His anger, God says to Moses, His confidante and personal friend: "I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation." Moses intervenes! So God relents "of the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people."

To this very day, God is abandoned, turned away from, in a variety of ways.  Who, today, invites you to turn away from God, to worship false gods?

With what, I need to ask myself, do I occupy my time in such a way that I abandon building a relationship with God, nurturing my faith life, growing in love with both God and my spouse, my children, my community members?  What dominates or controls my life, to what am I a slave, to the degree that I abandon being a responsible spouse, parent, grandparent, community member, family member, priest, deacon, student, employee?

Behold the Mighty One, the Lord, our King!

In the Entrance Antiphon of today's liturgy, we pray:  "Behold the Lord, the Mighty One, has come; and kingship is in his grasp, and power and dominion." 

In the news every day we are bombarded by claims of leaders throughout the world of their alleged power, dominion and efforts to be "king" of the world, one vying against another for power and control!  Or we are showered by other's claims of the "greatness" of the person they perceive as "almighty" and as the one who will save us from the mire into which we have fallen and continue to fall!

There is one king, Christ, the Lord, "the Mighty One".  Kingship, power and dominion rest in His hands and His alone.  We wait for God's glorious intervention, as the immorality, the corruption, the deception, the criminality dominating the world, I believe,  is beyond our power to transform. We need and await God's intervention, as we strive personally to live hold lives. The Scriptures tells us that our God comes with power to save us. There is no one here on earth, in any country, capable of saving us from evil powers that are rampant throughout the world!

Today we celebrate the feast of Epiphany--God reveals Himself as King of all the earth and all who live on it.  Isaiah, in today's first reading, beckons us to "[r]ise up in splendor...Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.  See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples [who choose evil, live corrupt lives, are slaves to Satan's lies, and who are chasing God substitutes]; but upon you the Lord shines, and over you appears his glory.....[Like the Magi who brought gifts to the newborn king] you shall be radiant at what you see [when you seek God above all else and place your trust in Him, the Mighty One], and your heart shall throb and overflow, for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you [as you seek the Lord and sing His praises]!"

May you and I, like the Magi, seek and find Jesus, following the light of His guidance today and every day!  Our  lives will then overflow with praise and gratitude, as did the lives of the Magi!

A World in Need of Transformation

In the Collect of today’ liturgy we pray: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come to our help with mighty strength, that what our sins impede the grace of your mercy may hasten.”  As you pray that prayer, think of the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us continually according to God’s Holy Will. The Spirit within us, when we do not know how to pray, prays for us and for the entire world, a world which has aggressively impeded the grace of God’s mercy. How? By becoming Satan’s tool, it seems, by ensnaring people in hatred toward one another, toward other religions, other cultures, the disabled, people of other colors, against women, against the unborn,  seemingly doubting God’s power to give them the strength and help they need to raise that child honorably, justly, and lovingly, or not considering the option of putting that child up for adoption for those who desperately want a child and are barren.

 In the first reading of today's liturgy, Is. 26:1-6, the prophet prays as follows: “Open up the gates to let in a nation that is just, one that keeps faith. A nation of firm purpose,” the prophet states, “you, [oh, God,]  keep in peace, in peace, for its trust in you.” My sense is that, in many instances, our country, the people of the U.S. and particularly those in “high” places, so to speak, have lost trust in the Lord and have sought, or are seeking, security in God substitutes: addictions of any kind, accumulation of material things, a piling up of wealth and getting such by any means possible at other’s expense, and also by running from one relationship to another and another, seeking divorces rather than seeking reconciliation with one another and getting whatever help is necessary to restore trust in one another and in oneself, when differences are reconcilable.

Let us remember, as Isaiah says, that “the Lord is an eternal Rock. He humbles those in high places, and the lofty city he brings down; He tumbles it to the ground, levels it with the dust. It is trampled underfoot by the needy, by the footsteps of the poor.” Is that what could be happening to the U.S. and to other parts of the world? Are the neglected poor and needy bringing judgment upon us and, especially, upon those governed and addicted to narcissistic pursuits, slaves to out-of-control egos, and guided by false ideologies?