Vatican Congregation for the Clergy: Seek the Lord While (and Where) He May be Found

Christ is Truly Present in His Word and in His Church

The presence of the Saviour who died and rose again, persists in time through the extraordinary Mystery of the Church.  The Church is the Body of the Risen Christ and, united to the Head, it continues His work of Salvation in the world.

P>ROME, Italy (Catholic online) - 'Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.' (Is 55:6)  With these words of Scripture the Prophet Isaiah urges his contemporaries, and every one of us, to never stop searching for the Lord, to yearn for Him and to especially recognise the Lord's presence 'while he is near'. 

God's proximity to mankind is firstly shown through the Alliance that He wanted to make with man through the People of Israel that reached its fulfilment in the extraordinary, unexpected Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word.  The Father has sent us His Son to show us His Love and His infinite Mercy.

'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.' (Is 55:9)  The fact that God became man is far beyond man's wildest imagination and his capacity to comprehend!

The presence of the Saviour who died and rose again, persists in time through the extraordinary Mystery of the Church.  The Church is the Body of the Risen Christ and, united to the Head, it continues His work of Salvation in the world.

The Lord, 'may be found' today in the Church: in His Word that is proclaimed in the liturgical assembly, in the living body of the baptised, in the living guidance of the ordained and especially in the Holy Eucharist, in which the human - divine Presence of the Risen Christ remains in our midst and continually gives Himself to us.  We are immersed in the Mystery of Christ's presence!

From the supremacy of  God and the Eucharist springs every blessing for the Church and society.  The Eucharist is the Truth from which every other truth about man and the world flows.

In front of this extraordinary Mystery, the voice of the prophet resonates:  'let the wicked forsake His way, and  the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon' (Is 55:7) 

Mercifulness is the great sign of God's permanent closeness to man.  God has made a radical choice to stay permanently on man's side against evil, sin and Satan!  From this perspective of looking at Christ, the Church and the Sacraments of our Salvation, in particular the Eucharist, we find that the Lord is 'near' to us.

He who experiences God's closeness by meeting Christ in the Church or through the Sacraments can say with St Paul, 'For to me life is Christ, and death is gain.' (Phil 1:21)

'For to me life is Christ' means that we can recognise that our very existence consists of Him, the Crucified, Risen Lord.

Let us ask the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who's feast we have celebrated this week as Our Lady of Sorrows, to accompany us as she accompanied her Son to ever more perfectly fulfil God's Will in our lives. 

We ask Our Lady to intercede so that in this earthly life we may always act in a 'way worthy of the gospel of Christ' (Phil 1:27) and to be able to rejoice because, 'The LORD is good to all and his compassion is over all that He has made' (Ps 144:9).

Is 55,6-9:   www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/9ajjijbw.htm   
Ph 1,20c-24.27a:  www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/9a43vqa.htm
Mt 20,1-16a:   www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/9abul4t.htm 

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