Period of Inquiry

1. GOD'S PERSONAL AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

God loves you personally, as would a loving father.

God accepts you unconditionally, just as you are, whether man or woman, regardless of your age, race, color, size, wealth or poverty, city or country dweller, educated or not. He loves you because of who you are, not because of what you have or any abilities you may possess. He doesn't love you because of your social position and status.

You are a child of God, made in the image of God. You must be conscious of this dignity. His love is steadfast and faithful, and always certain. It does not falter under any circumstances or for any reason.

 "His love is eternal, and His faithfulness is steadfast."

 "Can a mother forget her infant at her breast or fail to cherish the baby of her womb? Yet should she forget I will never forget you,"

 "Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, My love for you will never leave you" Is 54:10.

God Himself is saying this to you, now, in His Word.

God as Creator designed a plan of love for you so that you may be fulfilled, reach fullness and happiness in this world and throughout eternity. He wants you to be fulfilled in all that is positive and good and in everything that fulfills you deeply and thoroughly. He wants you to be fulfilled in your person, your body, mind, and spirit, as well as in your personal and family relationships. He wants you to be successful in your job, because you conduct yourself responsibly. He wants you to have and enjoy a sufficient amount of material goods so that you may support and develop both yourself and your family in an honest way.

As a provident father, He is always available to you. He takes care of you in all your needs: He knows the hairs on your head... more than the lilies of the field or the birds in the sky... to the smallest detail, He knows you. Have you realized this? Listen to what God Himself tells you through His Word, "Thus says Yahweh who created you, do not be afraid... I have called you by your name, you are mine... because you are precious in my eyes, because you are honored and I love you. Do not be afraid, for I am with you Is 43:1

He has created us, and it is towards Him that we journey. We come from Him and are destined for Him. Beginning and end. Alpha and Omega.

Only He knows how and why we have been created. He knows how we can function properly as individuals and as a society. His law and His commandments are instructions the same as an operation manual is for an appliance. And this is why He has equipped and enabled each one of us with definite gifts and talents, creative intelligence and free will, feelings and emotions. He has put everything in our hands and made us administrators of the whole of His creation, so that we may guard it without destroying it and transform it according to our initiative and creative endeavors for our benefit and service. Creation is to be used by all with a grateful spirit while praising and glorifying His Name.

God is our goal and our gravitational center. You made us for Yourself, Lord, and our hearts will always yearn, run, and search restlessly until they find their place and rest in You; until you fill and satisfy our thirst, our genuine longings, and the authentic and profound needs of every individual and of all humanity. "I have called you by name" means you personally and individually, irreplaceable and unique; there is no substitute for you.

Ever since God has been God... He thought of you...and loved you... that is why you exist and are present here. "I have loved you with an everlasting love..." and He still loves you. Because of this He says, "I have reserved my grace for you" which is to say, God offers you a benevolent love, personal and permanent. In Mary, our mother, always inseparable from the presence of God, we see the maternal face of a loving, caring and provident God.

He places us, as a token of total happiness, in the midst of the paradise that emanated from His hands. Everything was, and should continue being, harmony and order. Harmony and order should exist in our corporal and mental health, in our human relationships, and in our harmony with and our dominion over creation. Everything that has come from His creative power is good. He destines us to happiness, and sets everything under our disposition so that we can attain that happiness and fulfillment - if only we follow His plan.

From the beginning we have been invited into a personal relationship and loving communion with God, as children and as friends. We have been invited to treat each other as brothers and sisters. "He who loves the Father also loves his children" Jn5:I.

If we are all children of the one Father, then we are all brothers and sisters and God's love should manifest itself in our love for one another.

:"You are precious in my eyes and glorious"... you are priceless to me and I care for you... you personally, with all of your history and in your present situation (your face, your name, your vocation, your way of life). "Do not be afraid..." reject all fear and insecurity, all lack of self-esteem, all feelings of worthlessness and all thoughts that may imply that you do not matter or that you are useless. "You are mine..." and everyone protects what is theirs... "He has made us and we are His. If we would let these truths penetrate our hearts, they would be enough to touch us deeply and transform us. God loves me personally and unconditionally! It doesn't matters who I am now or what I have been or done before!... "My love for you will never leave you...!"

Even though we rejected God and His love and allowed sin to separate us from Him, God continues to love us and does not abandon us. God offers us reconciliation, salvation and New Life.

Can you accept this truth and this reality in your heart and in your life at this very moment? Or is there, perhaps, something that keeps you from accepting or believing this? Even though in theory we can accept this truth with our minds, there are many situations that can keep us from experiencing and letting this reality of the personal love of God penetrate our hearts. There are three fundamental reasons:

1- It could be that you have a distorted image of God, an image of a rigid and vengeful God, or that you had an erroneous religious education.

2- Some people may have a damaged father image due to their parents' inability or lack of knowledge of how to express their love and care directly or because of all that has hurt and wounded them. The consequence is a wounded and damaged inner child. They have not been able to express or experience their feelings and emotions, and when they did express them, they were reprimanded or shamed. Thus, their basic needs were not met at the appropriate times.

3-It can also be that, having sinned and alienated ourselves from God's love, without knowing and experiencing His loving action in us, we suffer many of the same consequences one would suffer distancing himself from the beneficial rays of the sun.

And so, it is time to open ourselves to experience the love of God, our loving and caring Father. You must believe in His Word! I am living testimony of His Word! Let this truth penetrate your heart. Experience this reality in your heart. Or is something limiting and keeping you from this?

I want to invite you to meditate in silence for a few moments about this important and fundamental truth: that God loves you in a personal and unconditional way.

REFLECTION IN YOUR NOTEBOOK

Summary: God created the world and all living things with a glorious, harmonious and abundant display of His love. It is His desire and design to share His love with each of us. He gives us unending proof of how much He loves us in an effort to grow closer and more intimate in our relationship with Him. His plan for us has always been to live with Him, in Him, and through Him.

SUPPLEMENTARY

READ 1. What is the Meaning of Life?

  Everyone at some time in life asks the question posed in this opening lesson. It is the question asked by great thinkers like Aristotle and, a century later, by the Jewish sage, Ben Sirach: "What is man, what purpose does he serve? What is the good in him, and what the bad?" (Ecclesiasticus [Sirach] 18:7)
        In body, or flesh, we are at one with creation. But our deeper questionings set us apart from the material universe. The power within us by which we surpass the material universe is called the spirit or soul. In our soul we feel ourselves boundless and summoned to a higher life.
    Jesus Christ claimed to answer our deepest questionings. By the Sea Of Galilee he told his listeners: "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life" (John 6:63). This Catechism proclaims the words of Jesus which answer our deepest questionings.
  Babies stare. They seem to have eyes only for the outside world, upon which they fix their gaze.
  It is not long, of course, before babies are told that "it is rude to stare." But that is not really the reason why they stop staring. The truth is that as children begin to take in the outside world they become more aware, too, of themselves. Eyes which used to be wide open and blank become alive with personality. Their deepening consciousness of the world around them leads to deeper consciousness of self.
  Our individual experiences vary a great deal. They are mirrored in our different interests and concerns. But the ultimate reflection remains the same: it is the reflection that we see written in every pair of eyes that are alive and seeing. It is the reflection that every one of us makes at some moment in life, although more intensely at some moments than others.  It is the reflection: "Who am l?"
  We want to know. The questions are almost instinctive: "Where did I come from? . . . What am I doing? . . . Where am I going? . . ." But although every sane person who ever lived has asked these questions in some form, the answers seem elusive. Still, we wonder!
  All the great religions of the past grew out of these questions. Hinduism for example, sees life as a search for salvation through "release" from the round of birth, death, and rebirth. Like Buddhism and many religions far more ancient than the Christian religion, it exalts the qualities of wisdom and kindness. It tries to answer our fundamental questions by looking at ourselves as persons.
  But this was not the way of the Jewish faith. ''The eyes of all creatures look to you, O Lord," was the cry of the Hebrew Psalmist. And indeed all the Psalms, which we still pray during every Mass, focus our attention on God. The life of every Jew, as was the life of the Jewish nation, was directed to God as the source and fulfillment of that life.
  This, we might say, was the difference, in the ancient world, between the Jews and other peoples. Others tried to answer their deepest questionings by looking at themselves; the Jews were led to realize that they could only be answered by looking at God.
  In the modern world this remains the difference between Christians and those around us. Many non-Christians achieve astonishing success in their search for answers to their questions. But most flounder! The multiplication of all kinds of strange beliefs proves the correctness of Chesterton's remark that "when people stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."
  This Catechism will look at God. For we believe that it is only by looking at God as He has shown Himself to us that we can begin to answer our deepest questions: Where did I come from? . . . What am I doing? . . . Where am I going? . . .

QUIZ:  Now click here and do the self-correcting quiz #1: 

CRACKER BARREL DISCUSSION

1. What experiences have you had in your life that showed how much God loves you?

2. God says he will never forget you. Have you at times thought that God has forgotten you?

3. What prevents you from experiencing God's love more fully? Why?

4. Has your relationship with your parents, particularly your own father, affected the way you see God the Father? In what ways?

10/31/04