YOUCAT Question n. 3 – Part I. Why do we seek God?
(Youcat answer) 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.
A deepening through
CCC
(CCC 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: 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, GS 19 § 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 behaviour: 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: 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 17:26-28).
Reflecting and
meditating
(Youcat comment) It is natural
for man to seek God. All of our striving for truth and happiness is ultimately
a search forthe 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).
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 281) And so the readings of the Easter Vigil, the
celebration of the new creation in Christ, begin with the creation account;
likewise in the Byzantine liturgy, the account of creation always constitutes
the first reading at the vigils of the great feasts of the Lord. According to
ancient witnesses the instruction of catechumens for Baptism followed the same
itinerary (Cf. Egeria, Peregrinatio ad
loca sancta, 46: PLS 1, 1047; St. Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus 3, 5: PL 40, 256).
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