Sunday 4 October27th Sunday in Ordinary TimeLiturgical colour: green
Stone & Incense
JourneysCurious, or no faithEvangelical, Pentecostal or ProtestantOrthodox, or other apostolic ChristianFallen-away CatholicBecoming CatholicGrowing CatholicAnother faith LibraryThe CaseVoices of the revivalFind a parishAboutSources & methodSupport the site

Home / The Case / If I find nothing

The Case · An honest objection

What if I search honestly and find nothing?

A respected teacher came to Jesus at night, with questions he could not ask in daylight.

The short answer

Scripture promises that those who seek will find, and the Church teaches that God seeks us first and tirelessly.12 It does not set a deadline, and it does not treat a long silence as failure.3 Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel but seek God with a sincere heart may achieve eternal salvation.4

Start reading
Saint Augustine in His Study, by Botticelli: the bishop looks up from his desk, hand on his heart.

Sandro Botticelli, Saint Augustine in His Study, c. 1480. Church of Ognissanti, Florence. Public domain, source.

Jerusalem, after dark

Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews.5 He comes to Jesus “by night.”6

Jesus tells him he must be born again, and Nicodemus cannot make sense of it: “How can these things be done?”78

The Gospel does not tell us what he decided that night. Hold on to him. He comes back.

01The fear

At full strength

What if you read, pray and ask, honestly, and hear nothing? Other people talk about finding God. You do not want to fake it. Maybe the search just ends in silence.

The Catechism does not pretend the search is easy: it “demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will” and an upright heart, as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.9

It also admits that, in the conditions we actually live in, people meet many difficulties in coming to know God by the light of reason alone.10

So if you have searched hard and found nothing yet, that is not a sign you are lazy or closed. It may simply mean the search is long.

Long, perhaps. But not without a promise.

02The promise

Seek, and you shall find

“You shall seek me, and shall find me: when you shall seek me with all your heart.”

Jeremias 29:1311

“Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”

Matthew 7:7-81

Notice what the promise does not include: a deadline.

And notice who else is searching.

03The turn

Who is looking for whom

“God calls man first,” the Catechism says; “our own first step is always a response.”2

“What man of you that hath an hundred sheep, and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after that which was lost, until he find it?”

Luke 15:412

It even says, in words drawn from St Augustine, that “God thirsts that we may thirst for him.”13

So what if the silence goes on for a long time?

04Meanwhile

If the silence goes on

The Church knows long silence from the inside. It speaks of dryness in prayer, when the heart has no taste even for spiritual things, and it does not call that failure; it calls it “the moment of sheer faith.”3

Mother Teresa of Calcutta lived with what she called “the darkness” from around the time she began her work for the poor to the end of her life.14

The Church also teaches that those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel, but seek God with a sincere heart and try to do his will as their conscience shows it, may achieve eternal salvation.4

And Nicodemus? At the end of John’s Gospel, after the crucifixion, he appears again, “he who at the first came to Jesus by night,” carrying about a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes for Jesus’ burial.15

He came by night with questions. He came back in daylight, with his arms full.

Careful with the facts

  • The Church does not promise a feeling or an experience on a schedule; it teaches that God calls first, and tirelessly.2

Christian to Christian

Seeking without finding yet is not failure, and it is not laziness. The Gospel keeps Nicodemus in the story, and the Church remembers saints who waited a long time in the dark.

Only one thing to do

Your one next step

Once this week, pray one honest sentence: “If you are there, help me to find you.” Then tell one person you trust that you are searching. A priest is glad to have that conversation, with no strings.

How to talk to a priest

Keep going

Why a Church at all? Why not just a God who made the world?

Notes

  1. Matthew 7:7-8, Douay-Rheims. read the chapter
  2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2567. vatican.va
  3. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2731. vatican.va
  4. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 847. vatican.va
  5. John 3:1, Douay-Rheims. read the chapter
  6. John 3:2, Douay-Rheims. read the chapter
  7. John 3:3, Douay-Rheims. read the chapter
  8. John 3:9, Douay-Rheims. read the chapter
  9. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 30. vatican.va
  10. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 37. vatican.va
  11. Jeremias 29:13, Douay-Rheims. read the chapter
  12. Luke 15:4, Douay-Rheims. read the chapter
  13. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2560. vatican.va
  14. Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), biography published by the Holy See for her beatification. vatican.va. vatican.va
  15. John 19:39, Douay-Rheims. read the chapter

Translations of the Fathers and councils are public-domain 19th-century editions. Catechism links open vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching and history in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.