YOUCAT Question n. 485 - Why should we adore God?
(Youcat
answer) Every person who understands that he is God’s creature will humbly
recognize the Almighty and adore him. Christian adoration, however, sees not
only the greatness, omnipotence, and holiness of God. It also kneels before the
divine Love that became man in Jesus Christ.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 2781)
When we pray to the Father, we are in
communion with him and with his Son, Jesus Christ (Cf. 1 Jn 1:3). Then we
know and recognize him with an ever new sense of wonder. The first phrase of
the Our Father is a blessing of adoration before it is a supplication. For it
is the glory of God that we should recognize him as "Father," the
true God. We give him thanks for having revealed his name to us, for the gift
of believing in it, and for the indwelling of his Presence in us.
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) Someone who really adores God kneels down
before him or prostrates himself on the ground. This gives expression to the
truth about the relation between man and God: He is great and we are little. At
the same time, man is never greater than when he freely and devoutly kneels
down before God. The unbeliever who is seeking God and is beginning to pray can
find God in this way.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 2782)
We can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life by adopting us as his children in his only
Son: by Baptism, he incorporates us into the Body of his Christ; through the
anointing of his Spirit who flows from the head to the members, he makes us
other "Christs." God, indeed, who has predestined us to adoption as
his sons, has conformed us to the glorious Body of Christ. So then you who have
become sharers in Christ are appropriately called "Christs" (St.
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. myst. 3,
1: PG 33, 1088A). The new man, reborn and restored to his God by grace, says first
of all, "Father!" because he has now begun to be a son (St. Cyprian, De Dom. orat. 9: PL 4, 525A).
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