The word faith is used in so many different ways—we can speak of faith as something we cling to or guard or grow or lose. We talk of “losing faith,” or of “practicing the faith,” or of having faith in someone or something. We refer to blind faith and sure faith and lukewarm faith. But what is faith?
Faith is the human response to God’s invitation to be in a relationship with Him. God is always the initiator, the one who begins a relationship with us. This happens through His Divine Revelation—making Himself known to us through Sacred Scripture (the Bible) and Sacred Tradition. Sacred Tradition, some of which was written down in the Bible, is the fullness of the teaching and ‘culture’ of discipleship given by Christ to the Apostles and carried forth to our own day.
God initiates a relationship with us in big, life-changing ways as in a moment of profound conversion. God also uses less dramatic means—a conversation with someone that just won’t be forgotten, a moment of clarity, an experience of true sacrificial love, or an experience of a profound beauty, truth or goodness in God’s created world.
Faith is the term given to the way we say “yes” to God’s presence and God’s revelation. We give our assent—as free, rational beings—to taking on “the yoke” so to speak with Christ: submitting to the truths of faith so as to live by them.
The assent of faith comes from and affects the entire human person. We know the truth, we love the truth, and we choose to live by it—uniting reason, emotion, and will. Catholics do not try to place one of these avenues of response as greater than another—if reason is over-emphasized, faith becomes cold and calculating. If emotion is over-emphasized, faith becomes rootless and changeable. If will is over-emphasized, faith can become an exhausting “to-do” list.
Since faith responds to God’s initiative, it requires action from us. The way God asks us to respond is through Baptism and incorporation into the company of Christians—becoming a member of His family as adopted children. We profess a faith (or parents speak on their child’s behalf) that we did not construct and cannot alter. Faith is incarnational (putting ‘flesh’ on an invisible foundation) and sacramental (using visible signs to point to invisible realities). We practice a faith that depends upon communication with others—a sort of “holy communion” if you will between those who know God in intimate friendship and those who are seeking what they do not yet know.
“Yes, dear friends, God loves us. This is the great truth of our life; it is what makes everything else meaningful. … To abide in his love, then, means living a life rooted in faith, since faith is more than the mere acceptance of certain abstract truths: it is an intimate relationship with Christ.”
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, World Youth Day, August 21, 2011
Faith is communicated by introducing a person into a relationship with God—and then by accompanying that person as the relationship forms, deepens and strengthens. Faith is an apprenticeship into a way of life, not an indoctrination into a viewpoint or an offering of “life hacks” to solve problems or enrollment in a vast army of “minions” out to serve the Master as cringing slaves or greedy mercenaries. No, faith is being welcomed into a family—and taught how this particular family “does things” and “see things.”
Catholics profess that faith is personal, but not private—there is an inescapable corporate dimension to faith. How could there not be, if faith is being brought into the family of God? This is why Catholics are encouraged to live their faith in the public sphere—we cannot simply conceal our faith within the confines of our local parish or within our homes. Faith completely changes who we are—the way we go about things and the reason or purpose behind our actions. Faith is nurtured by a community of believers—and faith is meant to be expressed to those who don’t yet believe so that they, too, can come to know their Creator.
That invitation to explore and embrace the faith must respect the freedom and dignity of the seeker. We cannot impose faith on others, only propose faith. We do so with urgency—faith in God is the best thing a person can ever choose! We do so with certainty—God loves every single human being ever created and eagerly wants them to know Him. We do so with patience—God takes the long view and has our ultimate good in mind. He is ready and willing to lead us through the tangled mess of life rather than damage our mind, heart or will by overwhelming us beyond our capacity.
Catholics aren’t noted for being very evangelistic in our behavior—we don’t regularly go door-to-door, stand on street corners, invite strangers to worship or pass out leaflets in the neighborhoods to share our faith. We do, of course, have people who do all things with great love and sacrifice and sometimes to great effect. We Catholics like to evangelize by example—to let our attitudes and actions preach the Gospel to others. This is a great approach, as long as we can and do share the Gospel with our words when asked “the reason for our hope!” (1 Peter 3:15) Our “lived example” approach can be quite effective if we accompany it with the invitation to come and enjoy what we possess—otherwise, we become like zoological exhibits: quaint, interesting and safely “behind bars” for others to watch.
I wish Catholics would be more willing to step out and speak about their faith. We have what everyone needs—the fullness of the faith Jesus Christ came to proclaim and the means to fully live in that faith here on earth! In over three decades of ministry in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, I have observed that almost every one of the hundreds of people who finally made the decision to join the Catholic Church did so at the invitation and support of a family member or close friend. They were invited, welcomed and introduced to the faith by someone they trusted—and then they were given the space and dignity of questioning and searching until they reached a conclusion. This is how we share faith best: within relationships where we know (and join in) the struggles and triumphs of those we are evangelizing. But if the people closest to them never invite them to consider joining the Church, who would they listen to?
Another quality of faith is the way we cling to it—faith is firm and rooted in trust. We respond with complete trust to the God who loved us into existence and is loving us to our eternal destiny. Our faith is firm because we have placed all our trust in a God who is truth and who will not lie. We can trust God’s motives, His methods, and His ultimate plan. We can trust God’s power to achieve what He sets out to achieve for us. We can trust God’s ability to know and to take into account all that will happen to us throughout our lives—for God’s dominion is exercised in such a way as to preserve our free will, not to manipulate or obliviate it.
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek Him is the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement.”
St. Augustine of Hippo
Faith is trusting in the vision even when we can’t quite see it. Faith is hoping in the promises even when they haven’t yet been fulfilled. Why is faith reasonable, then? Because it’s rooted in a relationship with God—and because we understand that there is no other god! We have no alternative, really: God is God, we are not. When this God reaches out to touch our hearts, captivate our minds and unite us to Himself, we make the choice to believe—and in choosing to believe, we open ourselves to even greater revelations of His love.
Faith can be strengthened by learning and reason—and I consider it vital to engage the intellect when seeking to grow in faith. But faith cannot be sustained solely upon knowledge. Faith isn’t irrational, it is arational (beyond reason). The statements of our faith provide the structure, the boundaries, the “bones” of faith—but the life of faith is rooted in relationship, not in knowledge. Faith is nourished by and engenders love—not information.
I think about the days and weeks that followed the birth of each of my children. Upon bringing that darling baby home from the hospital, much learning commences! I paid attention to and learned the temperament of each particular baby—what made him comfortable, what helped soothe him, how he would tell me he was hungry or needed a diaper change or just needed to fuss. I spent hours gazing at my sleeping babies, loving them and wondering at their preciousness to me and seeking to do what was best for them. I learned the sound of their different cries and watched in delight as they developed a personality and the ability to communicate with smiles, coos and motions. Parents aren’t “robots” who dispassionately seek data in order to meet needs. We fall in love with our babies, and because we are so madly in love, we want to know all about them and how we can best care for them.
Now, when we think about our love for God, we of course realize that we are in the place of the baby (even farther away from his capacities in fact!). We are completely dependent upon God and can provide nothing God needs—God is God after all. But the fact is, He loves us in a way that makes the powerful love of a mother for her baby pale in comparison. And we, basking in this love, come to love Him back—and because of that love, we want to know Him intimately. And that’s what He wants from us: love. Not because He needs love to feel fulfilled and complete, but because the nature of true love is generous fertility—a creative force that multiplies in exponential growth as it is shared and exercised.
There is nothing we possess that God wants—except our love. God asks for our love because, if we don’t give it to Him, there is no other way for Him to receive it. Our love for God cannot exist without having faith in Him. But faith alone is not enough—even the demons believe that God exists and that there is One God. But, in their pride, they hate the source of love and refuse to submit to Him. Faith, to be salvific, must be united to love. When we love the One in whom we have put our faith, well, that’s when the relationship grows, deepens, stretches out and, ultimately, takes us all the way to heaven.
“O Lord, you first loved us so that we might love you–not because you needed our love, but because we could not be what you created us to be, except by loving you.”
William of St. Thierry, Abbot (from the Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings)
Because faith is our free response to God’s invitation to be in relationship with Him, it involves the whole person. Faith in God cannot be put in a little “box” within our lives and divorced from our behavior, our speech and our attitudes. Since we were created as embodied souls—a union of spirit and matter—and destined to live forever in heaven as embodied souls (at the end of time), then it makes sense that the faith of our soul must be embodied as well.
There is, ultimately, no necessary conflict between the faith we hold in our hearts and mind and the faith we express in our actions—the whole faith versus works distinction falls apart when one carefully defines what faith is. If faith is simply an “A-OK” thumbs up response to the truth that God exists and that He can save us, well then works would not be a part of faith. But if faith is an assent to be in relationship with God because one believes everything God has taught us about Himself and about the way to eternal life, then faith is necessarily reflected in our actions.
We don’t think much about people who pay us “lip service” of love, affection, admiration, loyalty and then do no actions to express these things. Watching someone drown, assuring them of our love and belief in them, as they sink under the waves without trying to rescue them surely shows no true love. Faith in God requires a complete handing over of ourselves to the One who IS GOD—and this means faith shines out of the attitudes we express, in the words we say, and in the things we chose to do and not do. Faith without works is a dead faith, a demon faith.
But actions without faith are of little use. Faith’s goal is union with God. When “good” things are done without faith in God, they lead nowhere lasting. When we Christians get too caught up in acting and doing as ends in themselves, we risk weakening the underpinning of our life: seeking union with God in holiness of life. This is why the Church warns us against simply doing works without the explicit love of Christ—we can never settle for being simply one more aid organization, one more NGO, intent on advancing policies that benefit people in their earthly existence. We cannot ignore people’s earthly needs, of course! But let’s be clear about what it is we can and cannot achieve. Poverty, disease, disasters and war are not the ultimate tragedies—eternal life separated from God is the ultimate tragedy! And perhaps, what we must humbly admit, is that the needy, the destitute, the marginalized are often much father along on the journey to heaven than we “privileged” helpers are—it is we, the satiated and insensible and lukewarm, who desperately need to give in order to make room for God in our lives. We, those who are wealthy in the world’s way, are dependent upon those who suffer due to our collective greed and false ambitions.
Christians seek to give humanitarian aid to honor the God who is the giver of all we have and who is present, in a powerful way, in the hearts of those who are poor in spirit, meek and persecuted, the truly blessed. We seek to alleviate suffering out of love for the person—and with a deep respect for the dignity of every human person whom God has loved into existence from the moment of their conception. In faith, then, we recognize each person as a real or potential brother or sister in the Lord—someone destined for eternal glory and with whom we will dwell forever in heaven.
Heaven is the goal of faith—no earthly goal should distract us from this truth. Faith is not “good” for us because it is a way to assure good health, repair broken relationships, send business contacts our way, or build up our wealth. When we focus on impermanent and self-centered purposes of faith, it rapidly becomes a form of economic transaction. We do the right things, “pay our dues,” and expect God to provide us with the things we desire. How many people do we know who have said something like, “I refuse to believe in God anymore. I went to Mass every week, prayed and did all the right things, and still, [fill in the blank] happened. What’s the point of believing?”
It can be so hard to cling to faith when we face crushing defeats, wrenching loss and terrifying situations. This is when the communal aspect of faith becomes so important, as we “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2) and as we build each other up with encouragement (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Faith, being a sure and certain trust that what God says is true, is a handing over of one’s life to God. Faith is not rooted in economic contracts, but in a covenant of love. We believe because God is truth itself, not because believing gets us what we think is best for us. The gentle, supportive love of fellow believers can help the grieving, suffering person to remember these truths of faith.
Faith, as our assent to God’s invitation to know Him and love Him and serve Him, can be weakened and even lost. Sometimes a person’s faith is lost when they face something that breaks their trust in the goodness or power or love of God—the suffering and death of a loved one, for example. Other times, faith seems to slip away quietly and without fanfare, being relegated to a boring past-time or distasteful “chore” that dampens our enthusiasm and commitment. After a while, we may look up and notice that faith has disappeared out of our lives and we can’t even explain why—or when. It just happened.
Some of our Christian brothers and sisters speak of faith as something that can’t be lost. Once a person is “born again” and professes faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, then they are saved—no matter what they do after that point or whether they even keep believing. We Catholics side with St. Paul in this matter, who describes the tragedy of those who make a “shipwreck” of their faith. Since faith is my assent to God’s revelation, I can reject, renounce or revoke it. God, however, is faithful—He will not reject us. But His love cannot penetrate our hearts or have the desired effect if we refuse the gift. Faith’s goal can be lost to us if we refuse God’s offer of eternal life.
Heaven is God’s gift, hell is our choice. Hell may perhaps be populated by those who claimed to be Christians, but who rejected their Baptism, separated themselves from God through unrepented mortal (deadly) sin, and refused to allow the love of God to move their hearts. We do know that all who cry out to God in faith will be saved—for He longs to fulfill His plans for us. He is love and mercy itself.
This is the mystery of faith—the clouded and unclear way in which God’s loving plan for us and all humanity incorporates our free will. In heaven, faith will fall away from us as we encounter faith’s goal—the very face of God, with the veil removed forever. Faith is essential on earth, unneeded in heaven. The Church’s mission, therefore, is to guard and support each person’s faith until it takes us to Gods’ kingdom—where it can be laid down as we are received into the eternal embrace of the Most Holy Trinity. We cling to faith, we guard it as a treasure, and we pass it on to others in the hope that all will be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. This is the joy of faith: eternal life!
Flourish Catholic 