On the question of Faith
I've been thinking about faith a lot recently.
I guess one should expect that during Lent and Easter. Every day someone, somewhere is talking about faith, or exhorting one to faith, or professing the Faith. Jesus is hanging on the cross; Jesus is laid in the tomb; Jesus is raised from the dead; Jesus has ascended into glory; the Holy Spirit has come upon the disciples like a roaring wind and tongues of fire. Every day for 12 weeks, faith has been an explicit part of the picture. Every day.
But what if you don't have any?
All of my life I have been greatly perplexed by that saying of Jesus:
Matthew 17:20
All of my life it has been abundantly clear to me that Faith is not one of the gifts that I've been given, at least not so that you'd notice the geography changing too regularly.
When I was in College, my dearest friends were men and women of great personal struggles for whom the question of faith was terribly real.
It never really occurred to me that there might be no God. But I did have a period of deep doubt. It did occur to me that the God who does exist might not be the God my Charismatic friends spoke so highly of, or that my smug cousin proudly proclaimed to be her personal Lord and Savior.
Even now, I'm a bit uneasy about all that. It is altogether possible that we have got God quite wrong!
One set of my best friends were devoted Charismatics. God, for them, was very alive, very interested in their daily activities and class schedules. Everyday, in every way God was the Person of the Hour! The evidence of faith was everywhere amongst them. One of their number had their left leg grow three inches--I swear! Another was exercised of the demon of homosexuality, right before my eyes! Glory! All of them got to weep on a weekly basis and shout and jump about during rather musical worship services. None of them had to feel bad.
My more cynical friends might suggest that these people had enjoyed altogether too sheltered and structured childhoods, or remind me of the subtleties of experience arising from a raised kundalini. In any case, for many years this question of faith thing has been very irritating.
Remember, I've never really questioned that there is a God. The unmoved mover makes complete sense to me! The fear, really, is that that mover is unmoved and unmoving! When Anselm makes his contribution to Western Civilization with his claim that God is that than which none greater can be conceived, he completes his argument for God's existence, making a leap of faith to declare that that God is the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And there's the rub, what if Anselm got it wrong?
This never bothered my Charismatic friends. Anselm was not in the Bible and rational arguments are dubious anyway. And, well, assurance is so much more comfortable than doubt. The life and experience of the Spirit was right there for them. It has never been that way for me.
Today, to top off the whole season's focus on faith is the reading from St. Paul:
I Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13
I may not be able to move mountains with a quiet command, but I do seem able to say: Jesus is Lord. And, I hope that means that the Spirit lives within me. Hoping is not the same as believing. I believe in God and I have after many years begun to hope that Jesus is the true face of the God of that belief.
I have opted for Jesus, and the Jesus tradition, because the notion of the unmoved mover is too horrible to contemplate, however easy to imagine. Hope for me has been the road toward faith. I will not claim faith, but I will acknowledge a hope for it.
When I was young I used to pray: I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.
Thirty five years later, and I just don't have it, or I do. Whatever it is that I have is far more quiet than anyone could want.
I have given up on faith. I don't pray for it any more. For the last ten years or so I've been praying for Love, not faith. Saint Augustine said: Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord; and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee. I would rather love God than believe in him. I have come to believe that love answers the question of faith, belief. I would prefer to love.
It may be a surprise to some, but I pray the Rosary at least once each weekend while I walk from the Northside of the campus where I live, down the hill to the Public Library and then on to lunch. I've got issues with the Rosary, most of which will be left for another discussion, I've never quite cottoned to the approved schema associated with the Rosary so one of the many personal adaptations I employ concerns the three little Hail Mary's at the beginning (or end, whatever).
For many years I have prayed these Hail Mary's with a specific intention, I pray for the theological virtues of: faith; hope; and charity. I ask Almighty God to give me, or the world, or for whomever it is that I am praying, the gift of Faith in their life and the effects of Faith right now-- not later, but later too! In a like manner, I also pray for Hope and the effects of Hope, and for Love and the effects of love. We need, all of us, efficatious Grace, sufficient Grace just won't do!
Whatever else these things may be, mental attitude, psychological outlook, theological virtues, they are gifts. While they may be abundant, many of us seem to be in great need of them.
Only God, who is not unmoved, can give us these gifts, and I commend the practice of asking for them.
I guess one should expect that during Lent and Easter. Every day someone, somewhere is talking about faith, or exhorting one to faith, or professing the Faith. Jesus is hanging on the cross; Jesus is laid in the tomb; Jesus is raised from the dead; Jesus has ascended into glory; the Holy Spirit has come upon the disciples like a roaring wind and tongues of fire. Every day for 12 weeks, faith has been an explicit part of the picture. Every day.
But what if you don't have any?
All of my life I have been greatly perplexed by that saying of Jesus:
Matthew 17:20
. . . for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Be transported hence there, and it shall transport itself; and nothing shall be impossible to you.
All of my life it has been abundantly clear to me that Faith is not one of the gifts that I've been given, at least not so that you'd notice the geography changing too regularly.
When I was in College, my dearest friends were men and women of great personal struggles for whom the question of faith was terribly real.
It never really occurred to me that there might be no God. But I did have a period of deep doubt. It did occur to me that the God who does exist might not be the God my Charismatic friends spoke so highly of, or that my smug cousin proudly proclaimed to be her personal Lord and Savior.
Even now, I'm a bit uneasy about all that. It is altogether possible that we have got God quite wrong!
One set of my best friends were devoted Charismatics. God, for them, was very alive, very interested in their daily activities and class schedules. Everyday, in every way God was the Person of the Hour! The evidence of faith was everywhere amongst them. One of their number had their left leg grow three inches--I swear! Another was exercised of the demon of homosexuality, right before my eyes! Glory! All of them got to weep on a weekly basis and shout and jump about during rather musical worship services. None of them had to feel bad.
My more cynical friends might suggest that these people had enjoyed altogether too sheltered and structured childhoods, or remind me of the subtleties of experience arising from a raised kundalini. In any case, for many years this question of faith thing has been very irritating.
Remember, I've never really questioned that there is a God. The unmoved mover makes complete sense to me! The fear, really, is that that mover is unmoved and unmoving! When Anselm makes his contribution to Western Civilization with his claim that God is that than which none greater can be conceived, he completes his argument for God's existence, making a leap of faith to declare that that God is the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And there's the rub, what if Anselm got it wrong?
This never bothered my Charismatic friends. Anselm was not in the Bible and rational arguments are dubious anyway. And, well, assurance is so much more comfortable than doubt. The life and experience of the Spirit was right there for them. It has never been that way for me.
Today, to top off the whole season's focus on faith is the reading from St. Paul:
I Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13
No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
I may not be able to move mountains with a quiet command, but I do seem able to say: Jesus is Lord. And, I hope that means that the Spirit lives within me. Hoping is not the same as believing. I believe in God and I have after many years begun to hope that Jesus is the true face of the God of that belief.
I have opted for Jesus, and the Jesus tradition, because the notion of the unmoved mover is too horrible to contemplate, however easy to imagine. Hope for me has been the road toward faith. I will not claim faith, but I will acknowledge a hope for it.
When I was young I used to pray: I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.
Thirty five years later, and I just don't have it, or I do. Whatever it is that I have is far more quiet than anyone could want.
I have given up on faith. I don't pray for it any more. For the last ten years or so I've been praying for Love, not faith. Saint Augustine said: Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord; and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee. I would rather love God than believe in him. I have come to believe that love answers the question of faith, belief. I would prefer to love.
It may be a surprise to some, but I pray the Rosary at least once each weekend while I walk from the Northside of the campus where I live, down the hill to the Public Library and then on to lunch. I've got issues with the Rosary, most of which will be left for another discussion, I've never quite cottoned to the approved schema associated with the Rosary so one of the many personal adaptations I employ concerns the three little Hail Mary's at the beginning (or end, whatever).
For many years I have prayed these Hail Mary's with a specific intention, I pray for the theological virtues of: faith; hope; and charity. I ask Almighty God to give me, or the world, or for whomever it is that I am praying, the gift of Faith in their life and the effects of Faith right now-- not later, but later too! In a like manner, I also pray for Hope and the effects of Hope, and for Love and the effects of love. We need, all of us, efficatious Grace, sufficient Grace just won't do!
Whatever else these things may be, mental attitude, psychological outlook, theological virtues, they are gifts. While they may be abundant, many of us seem to be in great need of them.
Only God, who is not unmoved, can give us these gifts, and I commend the practice of asking for them.
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