MAN, SOUGHT OUT BY GOD AND IN SEARCH OF GOD

VATICAN CITY, JUL 5, 2000 (VIS) - Today's weekly general audience began just before 10 this morning in St. Peter's Square, in the presence of 30,000 pilgrims from throughout the world. The Pope announced that, "having contemplated in previous catecheses the glory of the Trinity, ... today we wish to undertake an interior journey along the mysterious ways in which God comes to meet man, to make him a participant in His life and His glory."

"In His love for man," he observed, "God always goes in search of him, even when man is indifferent or hostile. Man then responds by seeking God: sensing that God loves him, he begins to love in return. And so begins the ceaseless interaction between God's initiative and man's response, which we find in universal religious experience, but especially in the Bible." By way of example, he highlighted the faith in God of "even an enemy of Biblical Israel, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar."

"In the universal religious experience," affirmed the Holy Father, "we find an awareness of the primacy of God Who seeks out man to lead him to the horizon of His light and His mystery. In the beginning there is the Word, ... the 'good will' of God who never abandons man to himself.

"Certainly, this absolute beginning does not erase the need for human action, does not eliminate the commitment for an answer by man, who is asked to allow God to reach him and to open the door of his life to Him, but who also has the possibility of closing himself off to such invitations."

In conclusion, Pope John Paul quoted the "stupendous words placed on Christ's lips in the Book of Revelation: 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me'."

AG;...;...;...;VIS;20000705;Word: 320;