Reflection
For who has known the mind of God
or who has been God’s counselor?
Romans 11:31-36
This is an interesting question to ponder. Religion has been a major feature in many historical conflicts. God has been used to justify almost any cruelty, from religious wars, to burning heretics and stoning adulterers, to crucifying Jesus. Yet, we forget that religion is not God but our human way of trying to unite with the Holy Mystery that pulls us toward itself. For us Christians, Jesus is the one who fully reveals the mystery of God. In him we see love triumphing over hate; of costly and courageous resistance to evil, and of religiously inspired social action. He reflects inclusive love, forgiveness and compassion. The same is true of those who people of other faiths revere as their founders. The same is true of people we recognize as truly whole and holy. “Who has known the mind of God?” Certainly not those who have created a God in their own image.
Prayer
May seek to know God in truth and contemplation.
Action
Reflect on the question posed by the text above. Where do you catch a glimpse of the holy mystery we call God? Where is God used to give credence to what is blatantly restrictive, unjust, or oppressive. Free your thinking from that sort of control.
Suggested Reading
The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.
Psalms 116:5
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.
John 4:24
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Revelations 22:13
God is not a being among other beings, but the infinite Whither that makes possible the very functioning of our human spirit.
Elizabeth Johnson
To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that Love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.
Thomas Merton
All I know is that, thanks to a sort of habit which has always been ingrained in me, I have never, at any moment of my life, experienced the least difficulty in addressing myself to God as to a supreme Someone.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him – that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.
Swami Vivekananda
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.
Abraham Lincoln
We should think of the church as an orchestra in which the different churches play on different instruments while a Divine Conductor calls the tune.
William R. Inge
True religion is real living, living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.
Albert Einstein
I love you when you bow in your mosques, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
Kahlil Gibran
We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell.
Karl Popper