29th Sunday Ordinary time (A) 22 October 2023 One God
Give to God what is God's. What would that be? We cannot give God anything that He does not have, as all the world is His anyway. But we can give Him our hearts and minds in paying Him homage and giving Him obedience.
Apart from Me all is nothing I am the Lord unrivalled. (cf Is 45,1 and 4-6). From the rising to the setting of the sun. God is the greatest, unrivalled by a long way.
To think that the entire universe comes from one God. We say in the Nicene Creed that we believe in one God, not just God but one God. It is important to say that because it means we believe in no other god. Do not have false gods before Me, says the second commandment. ‘I am a jealous God’ says the Lord (Ex 20,5).
One God is more than enough because He can do everything; and again, all the world is His. (cf Ex 19,5-8).
When we see God's creative power and its diversity, we get some idea of His grandeur.
There is nothing He cannot do. He is far and away above and beyond us; but not so far as to be out of our reach in terms of prayer and sacrament, getting to know his will and presenting him our problems.
We may have a fear in a pluralistic age that we will offend other religions if we assert the truth of our own. But God wants to be made known. The great missionaries like St Paul and St Francis Xavier did not hold back. It is to everyone’s advantage to have the most accurate knowledge possible about the one true God.
He does not need our praise but he does want it. And it does us a great deal of good if we express these things to God, because it cleanses us from false gods and false ways. We become immersed in truth.
And it helps us to live our lives the right way up.
God can see that we damage ourselves when we turn to false gods. It is not out of vanity that He insists on being known, but to help us find the right path.
There are other ways of rejecting God besides pursuing false gods. The biggest problem in our society would be apathy, and just not taking anything seriously in the spiritual line.
We are offered a comfortable vagueness that relieves pressure on us to behave according to any particular way. There is probably something out there but we don’t really know, nor can we know.
There are many obstacles, but there has been considerable success in the Church’s missionary effort. Many have converted over the centuries, and this is great news. God will make Himself known if people seek Him out
We say the creed without fear, and without conditions – such
as, we believe in one god, but only when things are going well!
We may not be greatly confident in our faith but we can work on that. The solution lies in developing the true faith not taking up a false one.
The Creed can be a prayer – Lord, help me overcome my doubts and fears. Help me to live in the right way; help others with their doubts and fears, and offer them the certainty of the faith.
Finally it will all fall into place for us: And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one. (Zech 14,9)
No comments:
Post a Comment