Developing an Awareness of God

In the Book of Hebrews, we are reminded that the way to Spiritual Growth requires the delivery of spiritual milk first and then spiritually solid food.[1] The Author of Hebrews conveys a particular process of spiritually nourishing someone in the faith. The ability for any person, regardless of age, to digest a new way of living requires the exercise of respect for the person’s dignity and identity as a child of God. When a person makes an effort to investigate their faith, once he has had an interior conversion to seek a relationship with Jesus honestly, the desire to understand Him, I argue, strengthens. This development is fed further through studying and applying Sacred Scripture and integrating the Creed of the Faith. 

The path toward developing an awareness of God cannot simply be based solely on an experiential or orthopraxis approach that eschews a living content found in Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Creed of the Faith-Catechism. Any experience of the Catholic faith must corroborate a living reality that is Jesus Christ Himself revealed through the sacramental life of the Church. Our physical senses are moved and directed toward a physical reality that emanates a beauty attractive to our souls. The progression of this journey is not relegated solely to a content knowledge of faith. The embrace of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is meaningless unless we encounter the Incarnate value of the Word of God and freely accept its origin from God the Father through the Son Jesus Christ.

An initial encounter

Our human nature requires us to seek something that is both visible and true. We tend to respond by what we can see, feel, and touch, The idea of having blind faith can be an anomaly to many, which, if not adequately explained, can lead to disillusionment or indifference to any form of faith. That is why a human encounter must be directed toward seeking a divine encounter and not simply be satisfied with cyclical human encounters that distance you from a relationship with the Triune God.

A child encounters the reality of authentic love through the loving embrace of his parent, grandparent, or caregiver, who physically demonstrates that love by protecting, feeding, and teaching him through a Catholic lens of the world. This encounter is further strengthened through religious education formation that accommodates parental acts of love experienced by the child.

An invitation to imitate Him

In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul preaches the importance of imitating Christ’s humility as the basis of knowing Him more intimately:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.[2]

The Catechism reminds us that the Christian life cannot exist without prayer. As echoed in St. Paul’s account to the Philippians that our joy is in Christ, the relationship between prayer and the Christian life are inseparable, for they concern the same love and the same renunciation, proceeding from love the same filial and loving conformity with the Father’s plan of love; the same transforming union in the Holy Spirit who conforms us more and more to Christ Jesus; the same love for all men, the love with which Jesus has loved us. Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. This I command you, to love one another.^[3]

Do not be afraid to be holy! Have the courage and humility to present yourselves to the world determined to be holy...it will transform you from being 'slaves' of power, pleasure, money or a career, to being free young persons, 'masters' of your own life, ever ready to serve your needy brothers and sisters in the image of Christ the servant, to bear witness to the Gospel of love.

St. Pope John Paul II--