Knowing Our God

Faith is man’s response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life (CCC, 26).

When we join in the Profession of Faith each Sunday, we unite with our Church community in saying, “We believe.” We respond to God’s love for us and acknowledge that He is the source of all truth and happiness.

This act of faith is vital, for in believing we are living out what it means to be human. By believing in God, we become truly ourselves, for we come from God and we are made to move towards Him. God created us out of pure love, and He made us for Himself and in His image. This is why we are always searching for Him and seeking Him in everything that we do:

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 (CCC, 27).  

God gave us the gift of free will, so we can reject His love or choose to forget Him. But our good and gracious God will not cease calling us. He will chase after us and shout, reminding each of us that we will not be at peace until we find our rest in Him (30). For “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

This may seem abstract, but the Catechism tells us that God is more than just this feeling of peace in our souls. Because we are made in His Image, we have the capacity to know Him through human reason.

Reclaiming the Sabbath

Last month, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the importance of making Sunday a day of rest. Today the family is “threatened by a sort of ‘dictatorship’ of work commitments,” he said. And we must liberate ourselves from this, because:

Sunday is the day of the Lord and of men and women, a day in which everyone must be able to be free, free for the family and free for God. In defending Sunday we defend human freedom!

Earlier this week we reflected on Blessed John Paul II’s Laborem exercens and how, in working, we collaborate “with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity.” So work is vital to our salvation, yes, but so is the Sabbath. John Paul II reminds us of this in his 1998 Apostolic Letter, Dies Domini:

It is Easter which returns week by week, celebrating Christ's victory over sin and death, the fulfillment in him of the first creation and the dawn of "the new creation" (cf. 2 Cor 5:17). It is the day which recalls in grateful adoration the world's first day and looks forward in active hope to "the last day", when Christ will come in glory (cf. Acts 1:11; 1 Th 4:13-17) and all things will be made new (cf. Rev 21:5).

Sunday is for Christ, and on this day we gratefully adore Him and His creation by receiving the Eucharist.

We are also called to rest, the late Pontiff writes. Not just out of reverence, but out of respect for the Creator who rested on the seventh day. And out of respect for our tired bodies, which cry out for this time to be at peace: