The ancients in general seem to have understood that diverse deities existed, related, competed--and that the question for human discernment and commitment was which one, whose, was the real God. Today’s first reading from Isaiah can be understood in that way. Perhaps generated from amid a wider experience of having lived in the cosmopolitan empires of Babylon and Persia rather than simply in the land of promise, the prophet’s sense is that all the earth will learn that Yahweh of Israel/Judah is the true deity, competing claims notwithstanding. "Lord, every nation on earth will adore you," promises and praises the psalm refrain. I think our sense of this vast human challenge about God is slightly different: not to choose among discrete contenders but to discern and move ever more deeply into relationship with the One who pervades all that exists. Our actions, not God’s, are the diagnostic of how well we manage. The temptation, I think, is not so much to choose wrong and wrongly (I don’t think the things we sometimes are said to idolize actually begin to fill the role of deity) but to fail to orient our lives deeply enough so that God is able to exert a deep and tangible influence on us. The Godquest is our search for God who is searching for us, finding us, to the extent we allow it. How to be deeply present there, sharing the gifts we have been given, and in adoration. Barbara Green, O.P.
Epiphany ABC
Show Comments (0)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
Perhaps a revealing question is whether the church will continue the radical novelty Francis brought as a pope from a religious order—and whether this is the continuity needed now.
'America' is covering its 10th papal conclave this week—and while the technology has changed, the content remains much the same.
No one gathers Christians—Catholics and non-Catholics alike—throughout the world, however imperfectly, in the way the pope does. The world needs the pope.
German Catholic bishops say that even where the party has not tipped into extremism, it has failed to reform itself of such tendencies. They charge that a nationalism incompatible with Christianity has become the AfD’s animating ideology.