Blaise Pascal wrote: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”
I am sure you have heard a few times that every person has a God shaped hole in their heart that can only be filled by God. What does this mean? I have thought about this for a while and have come to my own opinion to what this statement means to me.
In this world we are bombarded by quick fixes. If you feel empty or alone there are many things that can quickly lift your spirits for the short term.
Going by my own experiences there are people who find all kind of ways to fill these holes. Spending money on “things” that they think will make them happy. Using food as a way to calm their emotions and fill the empty hole. I have fallen into these ways of fulfillment myself and quickly realized that these ways do not fill up the empty feeling, they actually bring more emptiness.
Even relationships can be used to temporarily fill the hole from loneliness, and sadness. Couples that stay together when it is obvious that they are doing harm to one another. There is no care for the other’s spiritual well being. They help the other sin. Yet they stay together because the hole is being temporarily filled although they continue feeling lonely and hurt.
Children used to fill these empty holes in their parents would have to be the saddest example for me.
Then of course there are the addictions, drugs, alcohol, gambling etc…
How do I keep myself from falling into the traps laid out before us? My answer is God. Do people want to hear this answer? I don’t know, but it is the only one I have.
Did God give us this heart with the hole in it and just expect us to figure out how to fill it? When I give my simple answer of God to people with little or no faith how are they supposed to understand what I mean?
That is where the Sacraments and the Catholic Faith come in. I really can’t believe God would leave us wandering around wondering how we are to get Him to fill our empty hearts. What do we do?
As humans we love our senses. We like to see things happening, smell them, hear them, and feel them. God knows this, after all he knows everything and he made himself human, so He knows.
The Sacraments are just that, the real touchable presence of God. He has given us himself in such a way that we can see, feel, taste, and hear. God is not invisible; He can be touched with all your senses in the Catholic Church.
God clearly explained and showed us exactly how to fill up our hearts. It is not a guessing game or supposed to leave us in wonder. God is present in a special way through the Eucharist and in every other Sacrament. He is waiting to be taken into our hearts, to fill us with peace and joy. God waits there for us and always will.
2 comments:
Great post. I agree. I love our faith. It gets me through the week and then on Sunday I sit in the pew and just sigh.....I love the sights and the sounds and the people there....the scripture reading the whole Mass. The school year has me going on Fridays also with the kids!
What a beautiful post. You really put it so well. Now to just let God occupy that space in my heart. It is so easy to allow other things to get in the way!
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