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Question

Hi Father,

I would like to ask you to clarify  a Gospel sentence which makes me think a lot. In John’s Gospel I read: “the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God”.

This sentence is very significant; as, in good faith, those killers will think of offering worship to God, so my question is: how can we understand whether our own idea of God is just an idea that has nothing to do with God?

Coming to the key topic, how do you, indeed consecrated to God and thinking that God loves you, know He is truly God and not a simple idea of yours about Him?

Another question finally, as I approached psychology a bit and saw our childhood experiences pushing many actions of ours! So, our good and bad actions are nothing more than reiterated behaviors which we learnt (often unwillingly) in our childhood.

If, during life, one badly behaved because of a difficult childhood or, on the contrary, goodly behaved because of a particularly happy childhood, in either case, very little is eventually full and deliberate as depicted by the Christian doctrine. So, the question is: what does the Christian doctrine say about that? Where do our excuses stop and our full and deliberate actions start?

I always thank you for your remarkable availability

Andrea

The Priest’s answer

Dear Andrea,

1. what the Lord said is quite true: “the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God” (Jn 16:2).

Those who condemned and stoned Saint Stephen believed they were worshiping God.

However, they were not excusable because they allowed the blindness of their minds.

2. But, your question goes further. In fact, you ask whether one’s own idea of God corresponds to the truth.

St. Paul says that God “dwells in unapproachable light” (1Tim 6:16).

And, it is quite true because God is always infinitely greater than what we can think of Him.

3. However, that does not mean that what we know about Him is wrong.

I could know something about you in the most exact way, even if I do not know everything.

4. Also when we will be in Heaven, God will dwell in an inaccessible light.

Our minds will always be limited and finite, however perfected with the light of glory by God Himself.

In order to wholly understand Him, we should have a similar mind: divine, infinite.

Nevertheless, our knowledge of Him will be most perfect.

5. But, another reason allows us to notice a real contact with God, indeed a deep intimacy. It is linked to the status of grace, indeed, to charity which is the vivifying source of that condition. 

Jesus said: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23).

So, we can speak of the Holy Trinity’s presence in the heart of a person.

St. John takes up this concept when he writes in his first letter: “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1Jn 4:16).

In other words, God is known not so much through intelligence, rather through experience.

Like one who has first heard of honey and then puts it in his mouth.

Anyone, who has not known God in this second way, is still too far from Him, and reduces God to an idea. That person knows that God exists, but does not live in communion with Him.

Living in communion with Him, through sanctifying grace, is different.

Anyone, who had no such experience, unluckily cannot talk about God except abstractly.

6. About your second question: it may be true that many actions of ours reflect the received education.

But equally, the truth is that each one is aware of being free and knows that at any moment we can act differently from the education received.

Freedom is an extraordinary force. It allows us, at any moment if we want, to persevere in the current condition, to convert or pervert ourselves.

I thank you for the questions, I wish you all the best and I bless you.

Father Angelo