”Who are you God? - And who am I?”

Today at Holy Mass the Universal Church commemorates the Feast of St Francis of Assisi…As a young man Francis lived to party and have fun…He had tons of friends…He was the son of a rich merchant and the “plan” was to follow in his father’s footsteps…But God had another plan…..Francis renounced his families wealth…Put down his “crazy ways” and embraced the will of God…..In prayer St Francis heard the words of Christ speak to him…..”Rebuild my Church, which lies in ruin”…..And that is exactly what Francis set out to do……Endlessly he prayed and asked God the following questions…..”Who are you God? - And who am I?”…It was in those two questions that Francis discovered the “pearl of great price”…And if we ask those two question to ourself as well…We too will come to the same life changing discovery as Francis did…….”Who are you God? - And who am I?”

“O LORD, you have probed me and you know me; you know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My journeys and my rest you scrutinize, with all my ways you are familiar.”

What did St Francis discover when he mediated upon those two questions I noted above?….He came to understand his relationship to God as creator and himself as creation….That understanding helps one to embrace humility…That God is “in charge” and we are not…Humility is the foundation of every virtue…God resists the proud and embraces the humble…Only a humble soul will listen to the will of God…The proud “think” they know better…Francis came to understand his relationship to God through those two questions...From there he began to “rebuild the church”

“If I take the wings of the dawn, if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea, Even there your hand shall guide me, and your right hand hold me fast”

Today in the first reading from Mass we hear from the Book of Job…As you may remember…Job had everything taken from him…Like St Francis Job was very rich…And in this passage today from Mass Job questions God asking why everything was taken from him….”The LORD addressed Job out of the storm and said: Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning………Have you entered into the sources of the sea, or walked about in the depths of the abyss? Have the gates of death been shown to you, or have you seen the gates of darkness? Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?”….What God was trying to teach Job by asking him these questions was…I am the creator of everything and have done things you cannot and will not ever understand…..God was teaching Job that he has a plan and a purpose and even if Job did not understand that plan at the moment, know that I have one because I am God and you are not…..God was trying to teach Job humility…That God is so far above us, yet loves us personally……In the end, Job figured it out…..”What can I answer you?……I put my hand over my mouth…..Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again; though twice, I will do so no more.”

”Who are you God? - And who am I?”

Like St Francis and Job from the Old Testament…We too must come to understand who we truly are….And we can never fully do that until we come to understand who God is first….This is the problem we see all around us today…Our world does not know “who it is” or “where it came from”….People are searching and searching - And in all the wrong places - Looking for purpose and meaning……They do not understand who they are!…..Only and until we come to discover that we are children of God - Only then will we find purpose and peace…As the great St Augustine once said…”The heart does not rest until it rests in thee”……St Francis “figured this out” and as a result he “shook the foundations of the world” as all saints do….And so will we!……But first we must answer the same questions Francis had to wrestle with….”Who are you God? - And who am I?”