Just before Lent I posted on Seeking first His Kingdom and His righteousness… and said
“In “seeking first” we yearn for Heaven, our True Home and we order our lives so that we can get there. Prayer, partaking of the Sacraments, especially Mass and Confession, spiritual development in ridding oneself of character defects (making oneself more pleasing to the Lord), learning more about the Catholic Faith and applying what you learn to your life. We build up the kingdom of God within us, become more Christ-like and Mary-like. We live by the moral and social teachings of the Church. We live by the Beatitudes and Matthew 25:31-46 (sheep and goats “Final Judgment parable.”)
We seek His righteousness and we seek to establish that on Earth (that pesky social and moral…).
In return, the positive effects of this might lead to a greater intimacy and friendship with God and the workings of Divine Providence becoming manifest in your life. But probably “Just Enough.” 😉
I try to study Scripture daily as a part of my morning (and sometimes evening) meditations. Just after I wrote the above, I entered into Matthew 13 and all of Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom of God.
In reading them, I came away with the notion that “Seeking first…” is more than what I wrote above. (See? I did say then that “this is what I got, today… 😉 ) Grab your Bible and open to the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 13. Carefully, prayerfully read each line, and try to get past the surface and dig into the depths of each parable.
In studying those parables is dawned on me that while what I wrote was a part of the teachings, I think the ultimate goal in “Seeking first…” is that building up the Kingdom of God within you is an all-encompassing and all-consuming endeavor. Not “merely” with just “a greater intimacy and friendship with God and the workings of Divine Providence becoming manifest” in your life but the “seeking” itself is to push away all other distractions as being detrimental to the quest.
Sort of like the journey itself is a part of the destination; the seeking establishes His Kingdom within you bringing you closer to Heaven…
Today I was skimming over parts of the Old Testament (Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers) and not even thinking about “seeking” and something else related to this jumped out at me…
More later…
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