As the Year of Faith begins, many of us are working our way through the Catechism. I have been reading through the first two days of the Doorways to Faith materials. We plan to start as a family tonight, using the Youth Catechism (YOUCAT) and the first paragraph to look at is 3. (This is paragraphs 27-30 in the full catechism.):

Why do we seek God? 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. It is natural for man to seek God. All of our striving for the truth and happiness is ultimately a search of the 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 realises it.” (St Edith Stein). YOUCAT 3

I found it interesting today that the starting point is desire for God. Having spent all of last week studying 2 Peter, with his description of God’s generosity, here I meet it again. In the main catechism, there is a quote from St Paul’s teaching in Acts 17:

27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 “For in him we live and move and have our being.”

Whether in Peter’s teaching or in Paul’s and right at the beginning of the Church’s teaching is God’s desire for us, always reaching out and the desire for God which, out of love, he placed in our hearts. Here is the dynamic of the Christian life, the dynamic of the Gospel. God always drawing us to him and longing for our love; our response, however poor, to return that love.