YOUCAT catechism + Catechism of the
Catholic Church Lesson 3
AVE MARIA Series
Chapter 1: Man Is Receptive to God
3. 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 RELIGION. [27-30]
The birth of Jesus. …..3
It is natural for man to seek God. All of our striving for truth and happiness
is ultimately a search for the one who supports us absolutely, satisfies us absolutely,
and employs us absolutely in his service.
A person is not completely himself until he has found God. “Anyone who seeks truth seeks God, whether or
not he realizes it.” (St. Edith Stein).
[5, 281-285]
“The measure of love is love without measure.” St Francis of Sales (1567-1622, distinguished bishop, brilliant
spiritual guide, founder of a religious community and Doctor of the Church)
Religion. We can understand religion generally to
mean a relationship to what is divine. A
religious person acknowledges something divine as the power that created him
and the world, on which he is dependent and to which he is ordered. He wants to please and honor the Divinity by
his way of life.
“The noblest power of man is reason. The highest goal of reason is the knowledge
of God.” St. Albert the Great (ca.
1200-1289, Dominican priest, scientist, and scholar, Doctor of the Church, and
one of the greatest theologians of the Church.)
[27-30]
FOR THE DESIRE FOR GOD
27 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: -- Catechism of the Catholic Church,
Second Edition
The
dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with
God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he
comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through
love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully
according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself
to his creator.( Vatican Council II, Gaudium
et Spes 19 § 1.)1
–CCC
28 In many
ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to
their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers,
sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression,
despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one
may well call man a religious being: --CCC
From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole
earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the
places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps
grope for him and find him - though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
For "in him we live and move and have our being."(Acts of the Apostles 17:26-28.)2 --CCC
29 But
this "intimate and vital bond of man to God" (Gaudium et Spes 19 §
1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by
man.(Gaudium
et Spes 19 § 1.)3 Such attitudes can have different causes:
revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the
cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of
believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of
sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call (Compare Gaudium
et Spes 19-21; Matthew 13:22; Genesis 3:8-10; John 1:3.)4 --CCC
30 "Let
the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice."(Psalm 105:3.)5 Although man can forget God or
reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life
and happiness. 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. --CCC
You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your
power and your wisdom is without measure. And man, so small a part of your
creation, wants to praise you: this man, though clothed with mortality and
bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite
everything, man, though but a small a part of your creation, wants to praise
you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us
for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.(St. Augustine, Conf. 1,1,1:Patrologia Latina 32,659-661.)6 --CCC
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