My grandson Moussa loves, I mean LOVES, the game Hide and Seek. He is about 5 now and we taught it to him a couple years ago. There is just one problem…he doesn’t really get the goal of the game. As we all know, the mission is, if you are the person hiding, to hide so well that the other person cannot find you. So he gets that he is supposed to hide but about 30 seconds into the game, he jumps out of his hiding spot and proclaims, “Here I am!” And he is just cracking up. But the thing is, the person who is supposed to be looking for him, ends up just giving up. They really want the challenge and the mystery of the game to persist. To learn in the process of searching how to best uncover the truth of where the “hider” is. Of course the other motivation for an exhausted grandparent is for their hyperactive grandson to stay hidden for awhile so we can get some much needed rest. Don’t tell him that though. Or maybe he has already figured it out and that’s why he doesn’t stay hidden.
I am reading a book now titled Beautiful Eucharist. It is a compilation of stories from people who have had the Eucharist play a major role in their lives. Especially their faith lives. An experience surrounding the Eucharist that either led them to the Catholic faith or strengthened the faith they already had. One of the chapters is written by a man named Bobby Angel. Bobby is a writer, speaker and evangelist for the Catholic faith and has a podcast called Conversations. He begins his chapter asking why is it that God does not just simply reveal to us what He wants us to know. Why all the mystery? Why does it seem like God hides from us?
He answers this by using the example of the game that my grandson loves so much…Hide and Seek. He proposes that God seems as though He is hiding from us because He wants us to search for Him. By spending our time looking for God, we not only find Him but we also find ourselves. God is saying to us “Come Find Me” and in the process find out who He is and who we are. And where is the best place to find God? We find Him in the Scriptures. We find Him in each other. And we find Him where He is hidden in plain sight…in the Tabernacle and in the Eucharist.
And I want to stress here that we do not search for God as an intellectual pursuit. By studying God the way we would study a science problem. He is not asking us to know ABOUT Him. He is asking us to know HIM. In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we see the Pharisees, the learned men in Israel, amazed that Peter and John were able to cure a lame man with their words. After all, these were not learned men. They were not Rabbinic students. They were merely fishermen. How could they, uneducated men, work miracles?
Peter and John, and all Jesus’ disciples, knew of Him at first. But now, after knowing the truth of the resurrection, they now knew Him. They knew the truth now with confidence that Jesus is God and is the long awaited Messiah. And this truth filled their souls to the point of overflowing. They could not NOT speak of Jesus to anyone and everyone. Even to the point of martyrdom.
Come and Find Me, says the Lord. And in searching may we find Him where He always can be found. In our hearts.
“Ready or not, here I come”
