By Fr. Antony Christy, SDB –
The Word today invites us to reflect on a theme that is central to our Christian Living: Faith! Infact, the readings together present to us a Faith-Growth Manual.
The Faith-Growth Manual invites us to change our style of thinking, knowing and living, all based on the faith that we have. Faith is not merely a set of beliefs that we hold on to, but it is fundamentally a way of life, the way I live my life in relation to the One who has called me.
Let us begin with this:
How do we understand faith? Try a definition in your hearts for faith…
A theologically sound definition should come somewhere close to this: Faith is my personal response to a Self-revealing God. God continues to reveal Godself to me in various ways, and this revelation comes to me continuously, eliciting from me a spontaneous and conscious response and that precisely is Faith. When I experience God as the almighty creator out there, I spontaneously am filled with an awe and I am inspired to surrender as a response. When I experience the presence of God in a moment of trial personally and feel delivered from it, I am moved to proclaim God as my Saviour. At times when I am directed in ways so marvelous, I thankfully acknowledge a God who dwells with me and moreover, within me! This is faith. Beliefs are merely expressions of this faith. Formulations like the Creed and the Act of Faith are just ways in which the experience from a tradition is consolidated.
Faith, therefore, is a personal relationship with the One who is the cause of my very being. And this relationship has to grow; it has to gradually mature!
First step is to understand that we WALK BY FAITH and not by sight. That is, we are convinced that something is right to do or not right to do, directed by our relationship with God. It is to say that we have God as our guiding principle, our compass, our route map, our GPS to say in today’s terminology! What is right at a moment to do can easily be defined: what God wants of me at that juncture.
Look at what is happening today – while the whole world seems to be sliding into what they acclaim to be scientific mentality, manipulating life and ruining lives, the Church stands tall and stays put upholding LIFE… that is walking by faith, not going by what we apparently see and being swayed by what is presented to the eyes! There is a deeper meaning to life, we will know it only when we walk by faith.
Second step is to judge a situation from God’s perspective, that is what it means to KNOW BY FAITH. To know what is valuable and what is not; what is desirable and what is not; what is wholesome and what is not; it has to be decided from God’s perspective. What my relationship with God permits to be good, is good for me. What my relationship with God deems improper, would remain far from my life.
Conscience is one of the most affected facet of humanity today. It is either blunt or ill-formed due to the kind of knowledge that is authorised by the society today. Can we abide by it, if we are truly sons and daughters of God? The ethical choices and my value system has to be determined by the relationship I have with my God. Which tree is big or high and which tree is small or low, depends on how God wants to have it!
Thirdly, when I begin to walk by faith and know by faith, I actually begin to LIVE BY FAITH! We shall receive a recompense according to what we do: good or evil, reminds the second reading. What we do, will be determined by what we are. When we live by faith, our choices will show it. We need not pay any undue attention to gaining the mercy of God, or contriving to win God’s favour.
Many of us fail to live – with our memories of the past conditioning us too much in the present or with our expectations of the future that makes us more and more dependent on the returns or with our obsession to be acceptable in the eyes of everyone around us, we fail to truly live! All that we need to do is live, live by faith, live with our relationship with God at the centre of our lives. That will automatically take care of every other aspect of our life.
A simple but demanding programme presented to us by the manual today: Walk by faith, Know by faith and Live by faith!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him on.