Question 7.124

7.124 This may be a challenge, but could you sum up in a few words the search for God of which you speak so often?

Psalm 42 says: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” I think that these verses express the desire that is permanently in the depths of our soul; man absolutely needs God, as a newborn needs his mother.

The Father made us for himself, but our heart is anxious, divided by a dull restlessness. In fact, it is simply waiting to rest in God; he alone can satisfy us. This is why, consciously or not, we are constantly in search of the Father.

We must not be afraid of seeking him always, because God is hidden by so many events in our life, so many temptations, so many false lights that blind us; we can easily lose him.

Nevertheless, the desire for God remains engraved on the heart of man. Yes, man was created by God, for God, and God never stops drawing him. Only in God will man find the truth and happiness that he feverishly seeks. Saint Augustine spoke magnificently about this passionate attraction of man toward the city of God and, in contrast, about all the perishable charms of the earthly city.

Man wishes for what is exceptional, which is God, but he has never really encountered him. In our time of religious indifference, the search is even more vital. For temporal things are in league with eternity. Although the aridity of the era seems frightening, we must not forget that the divine source is still more present than ever. Man may search without knowing why, or he may even reject the path toward God; but his quest exists in the depths of his soul. How can we reveal this interior thirst, so as to help mankind to go beyond the veil of sensible appearances?

I think that man will never be indifferent toward God. He can try to forget him, by following fashions or by an ideological mind-set. But this timid withdrawal is merely circumstantial. In this sense, atheism does not exist. Paradoxically, the very fact of not believing is already the declaration of a repressed faith.