A people who entrust their entire selves to God in the obedience of faith? A people who understand that loving God necessarily involves loving others, especially the poor and the needy and those who have not yet heard the Good News of God’s love?
This haunting question is being asked of us here and now. As Jesus comes among us in both Word and Sacrament, does He find faith in us? Well, whatever our individual response may be, at whatever level of faith we find ourselves, we must not lose heart but rather be encouraged because we are still on pilgrimage to the Father’s house, we can still grow in faith.
What nurtures and deepens our faith, our self-entrustment to the Lord in mind, body and soul? Two sources: persevering prayer and the Word of God in the scriptures.
Recent readings at Sunday Mass used powerful images which illustrate persevering prayer. In one, we saw the image of Moses with hands uplifted in prayer. As long as Moses’ arms were raised, Joshua was victorious over the army of Amalek. However, whenever Moses lowered his hands, Amalek became victorious. The lesson is clear: as long as we continue to pray, we grow in faith, but when we neglect to pray, our faith lessens and weakens. Years ago, a much-quoted line was seen woven onto banners and painted on signs: “Life is fragile; handle it with prayer.”
The Gospel reading proclaimed a parable told by Jesus, the point of which actually introduced the parable. Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. The story of the widow who kept bothering the judge illustrates so clearly that we must never cease praying, even when it seems on the surface that our prayer is not being heard. Our faith is being nurtured and deepened in this time of persevering prayer even when, and especially when, we do not seem to feel anything happening. As one priest once suggested to his congregation, God responds to all our prayers in one of three ways: Yes, no, or wait. The first two are very clear and we can deal with a yes or no. What we struggle with is God’s response to “wait.” But, precisely, in the prayer of waiting, our faith grows and deepens.
The second source for nurturing and deepening our faith is the Word of God in the sacred Scriptures. A passage from St. Paul’s second Letter to Timothy reminds us of the value of this second source of strength for our faith-life: sacred Scripture. St. Paul counsels Timothy, saying: “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it, and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Scripture is the manual for life in God’s plan. If we have not reflected on God’s Word, how can we expect to live our lives according to His teachings? The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us: “The Church ‘forcefully and specially exhorts all the Christian faithful…to learn “the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ” (Phil 3:8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures…. Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of sacred Scripture, so that a dialogue takes place between God and man. For “we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles”’” (No. 2653).
In order to grow in faith, it is imperative to read the Bible, to mediate on what we have read, and start assimilating it into our daily lives. We must not be like the second person in the following story. “Two women were chatting. ‘I must buy a new Bible soon,’ one told the other. ‘My old one is nearly worn out.’ ‘Worn out?’ the second women responded. ‘Why I have had mine on the bookshelf for over 30 years and it’s as good as new.’”
Sisters and brothers, we must continually go to these two sources which nurture and deepen our faith: persevering prayer, and God’s Word in the sacred Scriptures. After all, we are called and are being formed to be a people of faith. In his Apostolic Letter on the new millennium, Pope John Paul II tells us: “Duc in altum! [Set out into the deep.] These words ring out for us today, and they invite us to remember the past with gratitude, to live the present with enthusiasm, and to look forward to the future with confidence: ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Heb 13:8)” (No. 1). The Lord desires to use us as instruments to transform society so that the third Christian millennium will be a truly Christian one.
Therefore, I both invite and challenge each of us to deepen our faith as individuals, and as a community, through prayer and meditation upon the scriptures. We must allow ourselves to be transformed by these two great sources of God’s presence, along with an active sacramental life. We are called by God to be a people of faith — the saints of the new millennium.
When people attain a full maturity in Christ, they indeed are a people of faith. May we be recommitted to growing in faith, so that the answer to Christ’s haunting question about finding faith on earth will be a resounding “yes” — to the glory of God and the salvation of His people.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
