How can we know God’s ways?

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C 
First Reading: Wis 9:13-18 
Second Reading: Phlm 9b-10, 12-17 
Gospel Reading: Lk 14:25-33

When human reason has achieved so much in the field of science, this Sunday’s readings remind us how little we know about what is truly important.

“We can hardly guess at what is on earth … but who has traced out what is in the heavens?”

“Who can learn the counsel of God? Or who can discern what the Lord wills? For the reasoning of mortals is worthless.”

Some theologians claim just the opposite: that they can reason out for themselves what God wants. For example, some of them hold that contraception may sometimes be acceptable to God.

How do they know? How can anyone tell by human reasoning what is acceptable to God?

In trying to judge the rightness or wrongness of any human action, we are too easily influenced by our desires. For example, some will say that homosexual activity is not wrong because they are tempted that way; others will say that it is wrong because they find it naturally offensive. Such differences have produced tens of thousands of different Christian denominations in North America alone.

What does God say? How do we find out? “Who has learned your counsel unless you have given wisdom and sent your Holy Spirit from on high?”

We need God to tell us, for his thoughts are not our thoughts nor his ways our ways. In fact, he says, his ways are as high above ours as the heavens are above the earth.

In his desire to share his life with us, God has indeed revealed his will: first through the prophets he sent to the Jews, his chosen people, and then through his Son, whom he sent to all humankind. “Thus the paths of those on earth were set right, and people were taught” what pleases God.

Today, it is the Catholic Church, founded and backed by Jesus Christ, who guards the truth God has revealed to us. Many people do not believe it, but the Church makes that claim, and she is the only one who does; nowhere else do we find God’s will proclaimed with authority.

Every age finds some of the Church’s teachings unpalatable. In our own day it is the teachings about human gender and sexuality. A few generations ago, it was perhaps the Church’s social teachings. Always, people talk as though the unpopular teachings are outdated.

“The time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires, will surround themselves with teachers who tickle their ears,” St. Paul warned St. Timothy centuries ago.

If we truly want to carry out God’s will for us, we must look to the Church to tell us what it is. But there we face a rather frightening prospect.

Christ says that if we want to follow him, we must prefer him to everything else: our fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, children, and even our own lives. We must carry our cross, no matter what it costs. In fact, we should weigh up the cost carefully before we start.

If we recognize that the Catholic Church has the fullness of the truth God has revealed to us, we must accept it in all respects: teachings we do not like as well as those we do. We cannot pick and choose. If the Catholic Church has the authority of Christ, we must accept it. If it does not, then why are we Catholics?

The picture looks bleak. “Carry the cross.” “Give up all your possessions.” St. Paul describes himself as “a prisoner of Christ Jesus,” one who is suffering “imprisonment for the Gospel.”

Nevertheless, this is the only way to happiness: not the world’s happiness, the instantaneous gratification of desires, but deep, everlasting happiness, which will satisfy our deepest longings forever.

This Sunday, let us ask God’s Holy Spirit, whose gift is wisdom, to help us see that in every age he has been our refuge.