they came away with instructions for Silas and Timothy
to join him as soon as possible.
Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:
"You Athenians, I see that in every respect
you are very religious.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines,
I even discovered an altar inscribed, 'To an Unknown God.'
What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all that is in it,
the Lord of heaven and earth,
does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything.
Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
He made from one the whole human race
to dwell on the entire surface of the earth,
and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,
so that people might seek God,
even perhaps grope for him and find him,
though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
For 'In him we live and move and have our being,'
as even some of your poets have said,
'For we too are his offspring.'
Since therefore we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image
fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.
God has overlooked the times of ignorance,
but now he demands that all people everywhere repent
because he has established a day on which he will 'judge the world
with justice' through a man he has appointed,
and he has provided confirmation for all
by raising him from the dead."
When they heard about resurrection of the dead,
some began to scoff, but others said,
"We should like to hear you on this some other time."
And so Paul left them.
But some did join him, and became believers.
Among them were Dionysius,
a member of the Court of the Areopagus,
a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
After this he left Athens and went to Corinth.
REFLECTION
 'To an Unknown God.'
When I experience tears of joy, I am unclear what happened but I feel the presence of God, deeply loved. I find myself in a great deal of peace. The Athenians had many gods, goddesses and shrines. One that stood out for St Paul was the altar "to an Unknown God".
Are we looking for God in all the wrong places, disappointed because He is not whom we thought He should be? Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that God is in our midst. He is love and anyone who loves and sacrifices for others may not explain who God is but they know love and God abides in them.
Everyday we are reminded of all He has done for us, the miracles of the birds singing, the thunder rolling, the bright stars, the warmth of the sun, the newborn baby, the fluttering butterfly, answered prayers and healings.
The greatest miracle of all is the moment the Lord comes down and transforms the bread and wine to His Body and Blood. Through the power of the Holy Spirit the greatest miracle of the world takes place. Imagine God wants to unite Himself in each one of us and fill us with His redemptive graces!
