Devotional: What does it mean...

What does it mean when we call this God a living God? It means that this God is not a conclusion we have reached by thinking, which we now offer to others in the certainty of our own perception and understanding... When we talk of the living God, it means: This God shows himself to us; he looks out from eternity into time and puts himself into relationship with us. We cannot define him in whatever way we like. He has "defined" himself and stands now before us as our Lord, over us and in our midst. This self-revelation of God, by virtue of which he is not our conception but our Lord, rightly stands, therefore, in the center of our Creed: a profession of faith in the story of God in the midst of human history does not constitute an exception to the simplicity of our profession of faith in God but is the essential condition at its heart. That is why the heart of all our creeds is our Yes to Jesus Christ: "By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary." We genuflect at this clause, because at this point the heavens, the veil behind which God is secluded, are swept aside, and the mystery touches us directly. ...Benedict XVI image