Our context for seeking God is the massive suffering of the poor in the world
  and their struggle for relief.

Oppressive social structures in Latin America, Africa and Asia have resulted
 in millions living on less than is necessary to sustain  life.

Traditional Christian doctrine presents God as the Supreme Being who rules  with authority and commands the rich to be charitable. The poor are to bear their suffering with patience in accord with Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and earn an eternal reward.

A caveat here: We will be discussing the foundations of  liberation theology. There are issues between the theologians of liberation theology and the Vatican which we will discuss later.

Starting in the 1950's as part of a pastoral movement in Brazil to revitalize faith, the poor gathered in small groups. Here they read scripture, prayerfully reflected on its meaning in relation to their situation.  These comunidades eclesiales de base, communities formed at the base of the church, became sites where poor people made the amazing discovery that they are beloved of God. They saw that  the immense suffering of poverty is against the divine intent for how beloved people should live. They began to believe that their lives could be different. They received insight into an ancient truth: that in situations of misery God is not neutral. God wants all life to flourish. Wretched poverty violates what God wants for his people. So the living God makes a dramatic decision: to side with oppressed people to forge  a new way of life.

Where did this insight come from? Read Ex 3:7-8. The  verb “know” v.7 is the same one used in Gen 4:1 for sexual relations.  God intimately sees, hears and feels their affliction and comes to set them free. What does the burning bush, Ex 3:2, symbolize for you?

            In many more passages of the O.T., God admonishes the covenant community to care for the oppressed.  Is 1:16-17, 58:6-8; Amos 5:12-15,7:4-7  are a few examples.

This insight into God’s passion for the poor is linked to what it means for God to be Creator. For if God creates the world freely, out of love, then divine glory and honor are at stake in the world’s flourishing. Our experience of creating anything out of love: a child, a work of art, is that we want our handiwork to thrive. Apparently so does God. God’s plan for the world is frustrated by injustice and oppression, Ps 146:6-7, Je 9:22-23.

Jesus clearly and often speaks and acts on this theme, Lk 4:18-19. In Matt 25:31-46, Jesus tells us that in our practice of justice we will experience the mystery of God. Could this be the only way we can truly be disciples of  Jesus?

Mary prophetically speaks that God comes to reverse the condition of the lowly and the hungry,  Lk 1:51-53. Suffering is a kind of death that the living God abhors. The Magnificat calls oppressors to conversion and encourages all to bring life out of death. Many years later, Jesus’ resurrection proves that life, not death, is God’s plan.

            The resurrection of Jesus to new life in the Spirit signals God’s liberation for all. The resurrection is a victory not only of divine power over death but divine love over injustice. The resurrection pledges that there is a blessed future for all  who have been cast off as if their lives were meaningless. The early Christian community honored Jesus’ resurrection commitment, Acts 2:42-47.

 In what ways is the secular world  difficult for the believer? 

1) scientifically-discoveries about the natural world seems to explain everything, gives humans  a measure of control over nature, makes life comfortable

2) politically-democracy gives persons greater freedom and authority in running their lives, higher levels of education leads to questioning and independent judgment, the  mass media influence is global

3) intellectually- some thinkers in philosophy, literature and psychology have found the idea of God merely a perfection of human strengths, a god in our own image, a “opiate of the people,” some reject the existence of God in the face of innocent suffering, some proclaim “God is dead”

Which greatly challenges your faith?

So how can we find God in  the secular world? Let us study  Karl Rahner, a Jesuit, considered by many to be the foremost Catholic theologian of the 20^th C. (1904-1984.)    All the “isms:” atheism, agnosticism, positivism, secularism and religious pluralism make life difficult. He writes that Christianity is in the season of  “winter” when trees are bare and the cold wind blows. We need to return to the inmost core that can  warm the heart in winter. Does this “winter” metaphor apply to you?

Rahner’s answer is God: Gracious Mystery, the “ever greater, ever near.”  We must glimpse God in a new way. The usual way of arriving at an idea of God is to start with the natural world and conclude something  about its Maker.  Rahner does this but goes deeper into human nature.

He focuses on human curiosity in dealing  with life and our search for the meaning of life. We ask: What kind of life exists in our world and in the universe?  Is there hope?  What shall I do with my life? Who loves me? It is about a drive toward truth which is ultimately boundless. “We are a question in search of the fullness of truth.” We always are looking for “more.”  Is this true in your experience?

We  are oriented toward something more that opens  a space and beckons us onward. Rahner calls this the “orientation to the horizon,”  and it is part of everyone’s life It is not just one experience but a building and reaching out beyond ourselves toward something transcendent, a horizon we never can reach. (Like a plane in flight that never reaches a destination.) Does this sound like Job:3:11-12,16; 6:11-13; 10:1-7?

            Rahner reasons that if God exists, it is no accident that we find ourselves so open, reaching out. The Creator would have made us this way in order to be the fulfillment of our questioning. To name God in this way of speaking,  Rahner suggests “Holy Mystery.”  Opening up to God is not mastering the mystery but “ being grasped by the mystery which is present and yet every distant.”Aquinas, De Potentia, q.7,a.5)

 Sorry but God’s incomprehensibility exists even in heaven! Without this God would not be God. For some this limits our happiness. For some this means freedom to endlessly explore the possibilities of the horizon in every direction.  Do you feel limited or freed by this horizon concept?