Infectious Faith

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

There's an old Native American legend that says that one day there was a big fire in the forest. All the animals fled in terror in all directions, because it was a very violent fire.

Suddenly the jaguar saw a hummingbird pass over his head, but in the opposite direction. The hummingbird flew towards the fire.

Whatever happened, he wouldn't stop. Moments later, the jaguar saw him pass again, but this time in the same direction as the jaguar was walking. He could observe this coming and going until he decided to ask the bird about it because it seemed very bizarre behavior.

“What are you doing, hummingbird?” he asked.

“I'm going to the lake,” he answered. “I drink water with my beak and throw it on the fire to extinguish it.”

The jaguar laughed. “Are you crazy? Do you really think you can put out that big fire on your own with your very small beak?”

“No,” said the hummingbird, “I know I can't. But the forest is my home. It feeds me. It shelters me and my family. I am very grateful for that. And I help the forest grow by pollinating its flowers.

“I am part of her, and the forest is part of me. I know I can't put out the fire, but I must do my part.”

At that moment, the forest spirits who listened to the hummingbird were moved by this little bird and its devotion to the forest. Miraculously, they sent a torrential downpour, which put an end to the great fire.

It seems that Native American grandmothers would occasionally tell this story to their grandchildren, and then conclude with, “Do you want to attract miracles into your life? Then do your part.”

“You have no responsibility to save the world or find solutions to all problems, but to attend to your particular personal corner of the universe. And as each person does that, the world saves itself” (Jane Roberts, Dreams).

May we all do our part with grace and gratitude. Our Lord has told us, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move,’ and it would move” (cf. Matt. 17:20).

From this story, we could think of each of ourselves as hummingbirds, with our small beaks, with our tiny efforts. What can I do? I have to do my part, in the Church and in the world. God has given me this particular part to do.

I don't know how my part is going to influence other people, or maybe some great supernatural forces, for good, for truth, for beauty, for love in the world; or how, because I do my little part, with my little beak, doing what I can, that's going to create a revolution some place, a revolution of love, and of doctrine, of truth, all over the world.

This is what the Catholic Church is for.

There was an article in the newspaper yesterday that a religious order in New York was closing down an order of nuns.

They felt after 150 years they had fulfilled their role. It was founded by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, one of the first great saints of the United States of North America. Now the nuns were few and they were elderly; they felt that it was time to call it a day.

But then the next paragraph said that in the last one hundred fifty years, this religious order of nuns had founded one hundred fifty schools, twenty-eight hospitals, a university of liberal arts, and a few more things.

If you look at the history of one religious order over time, you will find something incredible.

In the Catholic Church, we have an awful lot to be proud of, of what many people, with their small beaks like hummingbirds, have contributed with their corporate effort: the education and health care of millions and millions and millions, building up countries, building up societies.

Like the hummingbird, we're called to function with faith, to have an infectious faith that infects other people, maybe astounds other people.

We should also have a great sense of gratitude for what we have received, like this hummingbird is very grateful for the forest: “The forest is my home. It feeds me. It shelters me and my family.”

Each one of us should look at what we have received from the Catholic Church, our parents, grandparents, and maybe great-grandparents before us; in terms of values, education, truth, love, beauty, in learning, in art, in culture, in values, in morality, in social customs that help us to live like human beings. There's an enormous treasure there from which we have benefited.

Like the hummingbird, we have to have a great sense of responsibility and faith that if we do our part, if we live a life of virtue, if we struggle for holiness, if we take our apostolate very seriously, then God is going to move all the spirits, the angels and the saints, and all the graces from the Holy Spirit, to bring about wonderful miracles in the world.

We can ask Our Lord that we might grow in our infectious faith.

Faith is a reality that's a little paradoxical. On the one hand, it's a simple thing, a disposition of the heart often lived through detachment, sometimes dryness.

But on the other hand, it's a very beautiful, fruitful reality, because faith, the act of faith, truly puts us in contact with God and opens us little by little to all the depth and the richness of the mystery of God.

With our little effort of faith put into practice, we can move much greater and mighty forces—the forces of heaven.

Faith is the only light that never deceives us. It's our true strength. It allows us to lean on God, so that we ask Him for the miracles that are needed to change society, to change the world, to change minds and hearts, even when everything seems irredeemable.

We could say that in a sense, all our sins and all our faults come from a lack of faith.

The jaguar in the story seems to be small on faith. Maybe he's big in power and speed, provoking fear in other people. He's one of the lords of the forest. But when it comes to faith and moving the world, he seems a bit powerless.

Sometimes we don't believe enough in God's power and love. In the end, that may be the source of all our problems.

It’s true that we sometimes live through difficult and painful circumstances which can be tough to confront.

We also experience our own weaknesses and frailty. But these difficulties are not our real problem.

Our only problem is our lack of faith. If we live through our difficulties and personal limits with faith, if we put them in God's hands with full trust, He will take care of us.

And even those events in our lives that seem to be the most negative can wind up being positive. “If you had faith as big as a mustard seed, you would say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move” (Matt. 17:20).

What Our Lord most reproaches the disciples for is not their human weakness, but their lack of faith.

In the Gospel of St. John, we find a whole list of things and benefits that come from faith:

“He who believes…is not judged, but passes from death to life” (John 5:24).

He walks in the light (1 John 15:7). He has eternal life (John 5:24). He is never thirsty (John 4:14). Even if he dies, he will live (John 11:25). He will see the glory of God (John 11:40).

He is already resurrected. He will do works like Christ did, and even still greater ones (cf. John 14:12), and is victorious over the world; this is the great victory, our faith (cf. 1 John 5:4).

At the end of the Gospel of John, he says, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31).

“Life in His name.” This is what is essential. Faith gives us life. Real life on this earth; the eternal life of the kingdom.

It puts us in contact with God. It lets us touch God, and Our God is the God of life.

There is a very personal, intimate dimension to an act of faith. No one can believe on my behalf.

In this personal act of faith, there are two inseparable aspects: obedience and trust.

It is an act of obedience, because to believe is to accept the truth that surpasses me. I am not the master.

It means submitting my intelligence to the light of God, letting myself be led by Him. It means making Him the Lord of my life.

In the Letter to the Hebrews, it is said about Abraham, “By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. He set out not knowing where he was going” (Heb. 11:8).

Faith can be a beautiful adventure. We don’t always know where it will lead us.

This act of faith is also an act of trust. We know that God loves us, and that He wants our happiness.

To believe is to trust, to place ourselves in the hands of God, like little children who surrender themselves into their Father's arms.

We also must note that even if faith is a very personal belonging to God, it has within its content the objective side of faith: an important community dimension. My faith is the faith of the Church.

Today, sometimes we have the tendency to make up our own, personal beliefs according to our tastes and the times. We take a little bit of this and a little bit of that, as it pleases us, in order to make up our little religion.

But this isn’t the Christian faith. My faith is not an individualistic reality that I have made up. It is something that I receive. My faith is the faith of Mary, the faith of the apostles.

It is the faith that the Church transmits from generation to generation. It is one that I can't cover with my own little sauce, or it loses its force and its beauty.

This faith can be expressed differently during different times by different cultures. But it's one faith in its essentials.

St. Paul says to the Ephesians, “Just as you were called to the one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all” (Eph. 4:4-6).

So, growing in faith, getting to the fullness of faith little by little, according to the expression in the Letter to the Hebrews, is then a double movement.

One part is an act of belonging to God that's more or less personal, free, deep, and living; and the other part, a better understanding of the content and richness of our faith.

May our intellect always be more and more open with joy to all the mysteries of the Gospel and the Christian faith.

The two aspects of faith: the subjective aspect, this personal act of belonging; and the objective aspect, the content of faith, the truth to which we adhere, are closely linked to each other.

Pope Benedict said, “There exists a profound unity between the act by which we believe and the content to which we give our assent” (Benedict XVI, Apostolic Letter, Porta Fidei, October 11, 2011).

The more sincere and profound the personal act of belonging, of trust, and obedience, the more the richness of the content of faith is revealed and becomes accessible.

And the converse is also true. The more the content of faith is discovered in its truth, its richness, and its beauty, the more the act of belonging, of putting oneself in the hands of God and be strong and free, and will truly realize its fruitfulness.

Faith is an adventure, and we don't know where it will lead us. At the same time, it offers us great security because it puts us in the arms of Our Father God and gathers us in the light that doesn't mislead, the certitude of the truths that God brings forth in our lives.

Faith is partly a gift from God, a grace, and also, partly a personal decision. We're told in St. John, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me” (John 6:44).

Faith is a gift from Our Father God because the Holy Spirit lights our hearts so that we can believe (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 153).

Faith is a gift of God's mercy. It's not based on personal merit. It's simply a gift that He gives us, either through our education, from our family, or by the grace of a moment of conversion.

The true believer is never someone who judges or disdains others because they don't believe. The believer knows that faith was given freely. The believer thanks the Lord for faith and doesn't allow a conceited self-estimation.

Pope Francis has said, “One who believes may not be presumptuous; on the contrary, truth leads to humility, since believers know that rather than ourselves possessing truth, it is the truth that embraces and possesses us” (Pope Francis, Encyclical, Lumen fidei, June 29, 2013).

But this gift also comes through a personal decision. Faith is also a decision by a person, a fully human act. It's an act that is possible, thanks to God's help, but an act that also implicates our freedom, our intelligence, and our will.

There are moments in life when faith is natural, easy. But there are other moments when it may be a courageous decision, a fight.

We could have a thousand reasons to doubt, to not trust God, to revolt against Him. But in spite of that, we decide to believe.

This fight is what St. Thérèse of Lisieux lived at the end of her life. She entered into a very sorrowful period full of suffering and trials, not only because of her sickness, but also because of strong temptations against faith and hope.

She used to say things like, “I have made more acts of faith in the last year than during all the rest of my life” (Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of A Soul) and “I believe what I want to believe.”

She always carried with her the Creed written in her own blood to show her determination to believe in spite of the suffering and the doubts that tormented her.

Her faithfulness in believing was certainly a gift of God. But she had to put all her courage and determination into it as well.

We all have similar moments when faith can no longer be a convenience—the habit of thinking—but when it must be a courageous decision.

These moments may not be pleasant to live through. But it is during these moments that faith really becomes a personal choice, that it gets deeper, and that it matures into an adult faith.

Another one of faith's paradoxes is that it is both light and darkness. It is a great light, the most precious of all light, because it gives us access to the truth about God, about the profound sense to our life, and how to orient it.

Faith lights our way and enlightens our decisions, but it is also darkness. Many of faith's truths surpass our intelligence, our capacity to understand.

St. Paul says: “O, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33).

Faith is not contrary to intelligence but surpasses it. It makes us accept truths larger than intelligence can grasp.

Living in faith means “walking in light” (1 John 1:7). But it doesn't mean we can understand everything, explain everything, master everything. Far from it.

Sometimes we see what we believe. But sometimes we must “believe without seeing” (John 20:29), to accept plodding along in a bit of darkness while putting all our trust in God.

We can't dissociate faith from the other two theological virtues: hope and charity. These virtues are called the theological virtues because they unite us to God, letting us enter into God's life.

They are a gift from God, but also a decision by man. They are truly the heart of Christian life, as St. Paul highlights in his letters.

Charity—love—is the ultimate goal, whereas faith and hope will pass away. When we are in heaven, we won't need faith anymore because we will see God; and we won't need hope anymore because we will already possess everything for which we hoped. Only love will remain.

But in our journey on the earth, love cannot do without faith and hope, since it relies on them. Faith engenders hope, and faith and hope give us the strength to love.

Faith and hope are like the two wings that let love take flight, carrying it ever higher.

But if faith and hope diminish, love will grow cold. A lack of fervor, of generosity, often comes from discouragement, from a loss of faith and hope. We don't believe anymore, so we lower our arms.

When we are fearful, doubtful, worried, or discouraged, the heart closes and becomes incapable of loving.

We also have to recognize that loving isn't always easy, and that some acts of love, like forgiveness or love of enemies, require a lot of hope and faith.

We can also say that in another sense, faith itself is a product of love. The deepest expression of love is openness to another and trust.

The more love grows, the stronger trust becomes. True faith is already in itself an act of love. It makes us accept God in His divine truth and permits us to give ourselves to Him, to return to Him with trust and obedience.

The faith described in the Gospel is inseparable from love. St. James says, “Without works of love, it is a dead faith” (James 2:26). We speak of a faith immersed in love, saturated by love.

St. John of the Cross speaks of “the faith with which we love God without understanding him” (St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle).

Pope Benedict has said, “Faith without charity bears no fruit, while charity without faith would be a sentiment constantly at the mercy of doubt. Faith and charity each require the other in such a way that each allows the other to set out along its respective path” (Benedict XVI, Apostolic Letter, Porta fidei, October 11, 2011).

John Paul II liked to call Our Lady the Woman of Faith and liked to say that she was a woman of faith that is put into practice (John Paul II, Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes, August 15, 2004).

We could ask Our Lady that we might, like the hummingbird, have a greater and more effective faith, so that we can stir many people around us to be aware of the great things we have received, to do our part to spread faith in this world and to future generations.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

VA