Saturday, November 10, 2012

The desire for God

General audience November 7, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI began this week's General audience with a quote from the Catechism:

"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." 

He reflected that such a statement could be seen as provocative in our secularized Western culture, but the fact of the matter is that every man and woman faces the question of what "the Good" is and how to obtain it. 

One way that such questions begin to surface in us is through the experience of human love.
Through love, man and woman experience in a new way, thanks to one another, the greatness and the beauty of life and reality.  If love is real, then it also calls men and women to come out of themselves in order to be with and for the other.  The "initial ecstasy" of human love is thus translated into a "pilgrimage":

Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God. - from Deus caritas est

Other human experiences also lend themselves to this movement toward a reality greater than the individual; such encounters, like friendship, beauty, and the love of truth, will call a person to go beyond his or her self.  Every desire that we experience is an echo of a fundamental desire that is never fully satisfied--the cor inquietum that Saint Augustine wrote about.  It is the desire for God.

It is possible to find again authentic religious meaning in our life, but what can help us awaken our longing for God?  Pope Benedict spoke of the pedagogy of desire, which has two main aspects.

The first thing to do is to learn (or re-learn) to taste the real joys of life.  Not every satisfaction has the same effect on us.  Some leave us bitter and empty, making life seem meaningless and even insipid.  Other satisfactions, however, will bring peace to our souls while at the same time making us more energetic and generous.  Think of friendship and solidarity with those who suffer; think of family and service that calls me out of my own little world; also the love of art, beauty, knowledge, nature...all these things vivify us, and through them will emerge the desire for God.

 The second aspect of the pedagogy of desire is never to content ourselves with the measure we have already attained.  The truest joys are those that liberate our cor inquietum, our restless heart, and make us desire a more arduous and greater good.

By educating our desires, we will learn to tend toward the Good that we cannot procure of our own strength; we will never become discouraged by the strain or by the obstacles that come from our sins.  When desire opens the door for God, this is already a sign of faith--faith that is a grace of God.


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