March 31, 2007

  • Faith alone…?



    January 15th, 2007
    Day 7

    (This is just an interesting bit of reflection)
    When eating- take enough and then imagine you are dining with God. Imagine that you are given the Heavenly equivalent of every item of food or drink you sit with- a glass of water beside Living Water, a piece of bread with butter and honey next to the Bread of Life. The “real” food will register sensually to taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell but will not satisfy. Even after eating you will still want to eat more. Heaven’s food, if you pray for the grace of receiving it, will not register sensually but will satisfy. Let the world’s food nourish; let God’s grace satisfy you.

    (Here is the main message of this update.)
    Faith alone is not enough. Say you believe in God, Jesus, etc. and that sometimes you pray, time permitting. Say you even read the Bible often enough, and even go to some kind of Christian service once in a while. Say you were baptized 25 years ago and confirmed 10 years ago. That may seem like enough to prove your faith to any who looks closely.
    Look at it this way.
    You are 45 years old. You and this woman/man grew up together, fell in love and were engaged when you were both 20, but didn’t marry for 15 years. That whole time you told them that you loved them, told other people, and sometimes you answered their phone messages or even called them first. Sometimes you read their letters and sometimes you even wrote back. Maybe once, twice a month you even visit their house. You always had faith that they’d keep in touch, always be there for you, and they were even though you were often away somewhere, didn’t return calls, etc.
    This probably explains the 15 years of engagement! But even after that mediocre, lukewarm time with you, they propose marriage! They want to love you forever, to let you into the family, to enter yours. You consent. Why not? They are very faithful and very attractive and rich, always giving you gifts and doing things for you.
    Ten years pass and nothing is different. You are still away most of the time, don’t call or call back, you don’t write or reply to their letters, you don’t communicate or do anything much at all.
    But you still have faith that they’ll be there, and they will. You still say you love them, and tell others that you love your spouse; married, in fact. You show the ring.
    Does something seem wrong with this? Sure, you could prove your faith like I could open my wallet and prove that I am a member of the Knights of Columbus or that my blood-type is A+. But how about proving your faithfulness? Like your spouse is faithful? Hmm? Where is the LOVE being given by both people to each other? Does faith alone save or even make a marriage like this? Does simply believing that you are married make the marriage? No!
    LOVE does! Love, reinforced with faith, by which faithfulness is a result, kept strong by hope. But love, faithfulness (the fullness of faith!) takes effort, consistency, forgiveness, acts; all sorts of things. To bear fruit, it takes even more work! Isn’t it worth it, though, to return the love and faithfulness of God, your fiancée through Baptism (the engagement or betrothal) and your spouse in Confirmation (the marriage)?

    It is very clear that God loves us, but He does not stop at simply saying, “I love you.” He has shown it, He has proven it, He has labored in love for us. He has faith in us, as we have in Him. Should we not go beyond simply having faith and go the entire distance that faith truly calls us to? If we feel unworthy of grace, if we feel like we do not deserve this great love our Creator has for us, we should not withdraw. We must run ever deeper into His embrace by showing that we love Him. This takes courage and effort, and oftentimes the greatest hurdle to overcome is ourselves, our own weaknesses. But God sees past them into the very core of us, and loves us wherever we are. These weaknesses do not stop God from loving us, but they do prevent us from loving Him as He deserves; why would you wish to remain as you are, stagnant? Would you not wish to allow the love of God to change you, by cooperating with His love, by letting HIS FAITH in YOU bear fruit? We are truly a voluntary soil; we allow things to grow within us. God’s love is as much sunlight as it is seed, but the seed will only grow if we allow it. In growing, it will change us into people of prayer, of love, of action. Other’s will see God’s love by seeing how we love ourselves and each other.

    “If we are the Body, Why aren’t His arms reaching? Why aren’t His hands healing, His words teaching? If we are the Body, why aren’t His feet going?”

    Jesus Himself loved everyone, but did He just sit around and talk about it? He healed, He walked, He died. He saw people who were unworthy, undeserving, but He did not leave them there, He challenged them to come closer. Even the most sinless of His apostles were unworthy, yet, they were chosen. God loves us, and look at the proof, the fruits of that love. If we say that we believe, that we love, that we have faith, as God has all these things in us, where is our proof? Where are our fruits?

Comments (10)

  • I really liked this reflection!  It really makes me think about where I would want to be in a relationship with someone and why and how I should show that faith and love to that person!  Hope things are going well for you!

  • Yes, I am still alive; I didn’t fall off the face of the earth, yet.  Things are well for me.  I am teaching at a Catholic school in Des Moines.  I do read your postings; usually I don’t make the time to reply to anyone’s blog at all.  How’s life with the Jesuits?

  • I agree with you! One of my friends, who is not Catholic but Christian, once told me that “All good trees have roots and leaves. These fuel the tree, and the tree produces good fruit. Now, which is it that makes the tree a good tree — the good fruit it made, or the fact that its roots and leaves took in good light and water?”

    Supposedly that was supposed to explain faith alone. Not only is that analogy quite faulty, but more important in a tree is not its roots but its fruits.

  • lol…my car is just very difficult :P …i got it fixed though!! :D

  • I think this is my favorite reflection of yours that I’ve heard/read so far.  I believe this was one that you read me over the phone: very poignant and beautiful, and really puts thing in perspective.  The adorable picture emphasizes things as well.  

    I get to see you this Friday!!!

  • Yes, of course I remember them! 

  • “Grr….. sorry about the duplication…”

    Well, now we’re even.  And you must have been really excited about that cookie. 

    Other than that, any other comments/critiques of the whole thing?  Anything that wasn’t clear or didn’t work?

  • A very thought provoking post. I think you’ve illustrated what makes Catholicism so different from some other faiths. When I was going to that Baptist church the biggest thing I learned about them was their belief that by accepting Christ as their savior they were saved, and in theory because they were able to accept Christ they should automatically be good people and therefore do good things. In theory communism was a good idea too ;) But one thing that has always drawn me back to my Catholic roots is that is seems actions speak far louder than words in the Church. It’s kinda like on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana had to have faith to reach the Holy Grail, however by faith alone he couldn’t reach it, he had to do the leg work too.

    Anyways, let me know when you’ll be in Denver!! And for how long. I’ll have to figure out some stuff for us to do. Maybe you’d like to check out the X-Wing??

  • Great post! Too often we have just enough of God in our lives to say that we’re a Christian, but we’d rather be committed to the world than fully to Him.

  • Love the analogy & also how you didn’t just consider loving God through the lens of vocation, but also the laity.

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