that the more one has a sense of God the less one can speak of God. The more one has the feeling of infinity and the ineffable the more one lacks words for it.” Faith elevates a Christian to greater goodness and helps maintain a pristine soul. There is no love or hope without faith. Faith is the root of good works, which flowers in love through the fruit of action. Indeed, faith in the Catholic tradition is the keystone for a very good life.
Faith of our fathers living still,
In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
Whenever we hear that glorious word:
Faith of our fathers, holy faith,
We will be true to thee till death.
Our fathers chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscious free,
And blest would be their children’s fate,
If they, like them, should die for thee:
Faith of our fathers holy faith,
We will be true to thee till death.
Faith of our fathers! We will love
Both friend and foe in all our strife;
And preach thee, too, as love knows how,
By kindly words and virtuous life:
Faith of our fathers, holy faith,
We will be true to thee till death.
~Frederick William Faber
(1814–1863)
Twilight Times
The gift of faith includes mystery, which is so necessary when seeking God in positive or negative life situations. To focus on the light of God’s truth and the hope of heaven while walking through the shadows is an enormous blessing. Faith reassures us that God is with us even when we walk through a seemingly trackless wasteland. When out of sorts for one reason or another, there is peace in the fact that this shall pass. Faith is an energizer that strives to uniquely reflect the image and likeness of God in all of life’s circumstances. When we ponder his love and mercy, how little we know! Thinking about his greatness and majesty keeps the concerns of life in their proper perspective.
“Faith is a gift from God allowing us to enter peacefully into the dark night which faces every one of us at one time or another. Faith is at peace, and full of light. Faith celebrates the very warp and woof of one’s existence. Faith considers that its precariousness and its finiteness are but the womb in which it abides, moving toward the plenitude and fullness of the eternity which it desires and believes in and which revelation opens to it.” So wrote Catherine de Hueck Doherty. Faith is a stronghold when suffering shakes up our lives. With faith, there is a certain peace in suffering because faith deepens love and unites our personal suffering with Jesus’ suffering. Grace keeps us moving along the bumpy road of life. God is not responsible for adverse events along this road. His goodness is found through these events when they teach us humility, forgiveness and repentance. How sweet are the ways of faith. With our significant faults we repeatedly sin and fall. Nevertheless, we take Jesus’ hand and get up quickly. We are forgiven and Jesus continues to inspire and guide us. We are not discouraged and continue to try to live as good Christians again and again and again.
Faith is the sanctuary of peace on a wayfarer’s journey. In his book He Leadeth Me, Walter Ciszek, SJ, wrote:
Only by a lively faith can a man learn to live in peace among the tensions of this world, secure in his ability (with God’s help) to weather the crises of life, whenever they come and whatever they may be, for he knows that God is with him. In the midst of suffering or failure, or even sin, when he feels lost or overwhelmed by danger or temptation, his faith still reminds him of God. By faith he has learned to lift himself above the circumstances of this life and to keep his eyes fixed upon God, from whom he expects the grace and the help he needs, no matter how unworthy he may feel. Faith, then, is the fulcrum of our moral and spiritual balance. The problems of evil or of sin, of injustice, of sufferings, even of death, cannot upset the man of faith or shake his trust and confidence in God. His powerlessness to solve such problems will not be a cause of despair or despondency for him, no matter how strong his concern and anxiety may be for himself and for those around him. At the core of his being there exists an unshakable confidence that God will provide, in the mysterious ways of his own Divine Providence.5
In divine faith, the one believed is God. In human faith, the ones believed are persons. It is sometimes challenging to accept the word of another in honesty and in truth. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “Someone may object that it is foolish to believe what he cannot see. . . . Yet, life in this world would be altogether impossible if we were to believe only what we can see. How can we live without believing others? How is a man to believe that his father is so and so? Hence man finds it necessary to believe others in matters that he cannot know perfectly on his own.”
Faith and its necessary sacrifices are an essential part of love within families, between friends and in the Church. As trust and faith in God is strengthened, it increases trust and faith in others (within reason). It provides a foundation for accepting others, which includes those we do not understand (our children) or like (our neighbor, supervisor or in law).
Holy Surprise
A life of faith can be ignited from a small grace such as a quiet reading of the Twenty-Third Psalm, a beautiful sunset or something someone said. On rare occasions, it can be ignited by an extraordinary occurrence and lead to unimaginable places. In the beginning of his book The Waters of Siloe, Thomas Merton relates this story:
It is late at night. Most of the Paris cafes have closed their doors and pulled down their shutters and locked them to the sidewalk. Lights are reflected brightly in the wet, empty pavement. A taxi stops to let off a passenger and moves away again, its red tail light disappearing around the corner.
The man who has just alighted follows a bellboy through the whirling door into the lobby of one of the big Paris hotels. His suitcase is bright with labels that spell out the names of hotels that existed in the big European cities before World War II. But the man is not a tourist. You can see that he is a businessman, and an important one. This is not the kind of hotel that is patronized by mere voyageurs de commerce. He is a Frenchman, and he walks through the lobby like a man who is used to stopping at the best hotels. He pauses for a moment, fumbling for some change, and the bellboy goes ahead of him to the elevator.
The traveler is suddenly aware that someone is looking at him. He turns around. It is a woman, and to his astonishment she is dressed in the habit of a nun. If he knew anything about the habits worn by the different religious orders, he would recognize the white cloak and brown robe as belonging to the Discalced Carmelites. But what on earth would a man in his position know about Discalced Carmelites? He is far too important and too busy to worry his head about nuns and religious orders—or about churches for that matter, although he occasionally goes to Mass as a matter of form.
The most surprising thing of all is that the nun is smiling, and she is smiling at him. She is a young sister, with a bright, intelligent French face, full of the candor of a child, full of good sense, and her smile is a smile of frank, undisguised friendship. The traveler instinctively brings his hand to his hat, then turns away and hastens to the desk, assuring himself that he does not know any nuns. As he is signing the register
