30th Sunday Ordinary Time (A) 29 October 2023 Sermon

30th Sunday Ordinary time (A) 29 October 2023 Knowing God

Loving God is an obligation, and that may seem strange as love is usually seen as a matter more concerned with feelings, not the stuff of commands.

We find, however, that we want to keep this command. We go beyond loving God because we have to, and find ourselves wanting to love Him.

This is what He wants us to discover. And from that we will find the same thing happening as regards loving our neighbours. We actually want to do it.

The fulfilment of loving God will probably not happen until we reach Heaven, but in the meantime we can grow from one day to the next.

We might say that God is too far away to love, too hard to connect with, as He is beyond sense experience. We cannot see or hear or touch Him, and that can make Him seem remote.

Then there can be a sense of estrangement from God, or even bitterness towards Him due to the sufferings of this life. Why does He let us suffer, when He could easily work a few miracles to make it easy for us?  So we might reason.

The way to see God more clearly and to understand His ways more fully is to get to know Him better.

There is a song: To know know know you is to love love love you. If we really knew what God is like we never for a moment doubt His existence, His closeness, His wisdom and good intentions towards us.

It is only the limits in our own perception that make it seem as though He has forgotten us, or whatever the difficulty is.

Think of Romeo and Juliet. If you say to Romeo that he had to go to Mass every Sunday he might say that is too boring, or too hard etc.

If you told him he had to see Juliet for one hour every week, it would be a different matter! He does not regard that as an imposition or a task.

Plainly, he loves Juliet more than he loves God - yet God created Juliet, and all that goes with her. Whatever and whomever we love in this life can be seen as coming from God, and therefore God must be better.

To know Him is to love Him.

There is still mystery with God but there are things we can know, and once we do know them we will come towards a response of love.

We seek the essence of God, and we can find it.

We see His signature all around us – in what He has made, the work of His hands.

If we move towards Him He will make Himself better known. Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near (Is 55,6).

As we experience in various ways the goodness of God we naturally reflect back to Him with gratitude, trust, hope etc.

We love what He has made, so why not Him? It is only because we do not know Him.

We can come through the clouds of doubt, fear, resentment or whatever else may obscure our vision.

It might sound abstract at first, but with continuous prayer and sacrament we perceive God's  presence not far behind.

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. (2 Chron 16,9).