Bishop Robert Morneau

Ask, seek and knock with trust and faith

July 29, 2001, Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

	Questions for reflection: 1. What are the desires of your heart? 2. What are you searching for at this time in your life? 3. What role does beauty play in your spiritual journey?

There are three human activities that all of us have experienced in a variety of ways. They are: asking, seeking, knocking! Jesus instructs his disciples and us to engage in these activities and to do so with trust and faith.

Abraham was not afraid to ask. He asked God to lower the demands from 50 innocent people to 10 in the attempt to avoid the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham exemplified two virtues in this intense bargaining: faith and persistence. He truly believed that there must be at least 10 innocent people in these cities; he even was not afraid to anger God in coming back again and again for a lower number.

Do we have such familiarity with God that we can get into a personal dialogue that even takes on the form of argumentation? Do we really believe that God hears our requests, that our prayers are effective? After all, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. After all, the person we prayed for still died of cancer. These are the difficult realities that test our faith and demand that we see beyond the cross into the glory of the resurrection. Our expectations are too minimal for the Lord.

Seeking is another activity common to us all. We seek affection and food, we seek knowledge and novelty, we seek security and comfort. But there is a deeper hunger and search for ultimate satisfaction. What is the drink that will quench our thirst? What is the food the finally takes away our hunger?

What we are all seeking is happiness which comes under a whole variety of names. Within our Catholic tradition, happiness - the beatific vision - is to know and love our God in eternal life. Nothing this side of heaven is totally satisfying. St. Paul sought his happiness in religion, in his adherence to the law. But it fell short. His seeking led him to the Lord and it was in Christ that St. Paul received new life and the cancellation of his sins. In Christ he found peace and joy, the two sure signs of happiness.

Knocking is the third activity which the Lord instructs us to engage in. The question arises: what door(s) do we knock at? Where is it that we want to live? Whose dwelling assures us of tranquillity?

Three doors are available to us, all of which gives us entrance into the mystery of God. The first and most important door is Truth. This is what sets us free. The truth that God is our Father, that his name (Light, Love, Life) is holy, that his kingdom will come, that God's will, and it alone, can bring us peace. The truth that we are God's daughters and sons, that we are forgiven through the blood of Christ, that the Holy Spirit guides us still. Knocking at this door is a life-long process; we call it faith formation.

The second door is Love. God is Love, St. John reminds us. Here is the power of God made manifest in Jesus. Through baptism, a door to the sacred, we plunge into the Lord's suffering and new life. It is here and in the Eucharist that love becomes tangible, takes on skin. No tapping here - bang on the door as hard as we can.

The third door is Beauty. God has planted in our hearts a love of lovely things: flowers, stars, the face of child, a lived virtue. Beauty is one of God's clever traps to draw us into his circle of light. Beauty made manifest is glory. Indeed, the world is charged with the grandeur of God - for all you have eyes of faith.

Ask, seek, knock. And Jesus says that those who do will receive, will find, will be admitted. And we say: "Deo gratias!"

(Bp. Morneau is the auxiliary bishop of the Green Bay Diocese.)