Life of 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.

Two fish were swimming one day when they saw a piece of meat dangling before them. The younger fish darted towards it with an open mouth, but the older fish cried out, “Stop! You can't see it, but there's a hook inside that meat. It's connected by an invisible line to a pole outside the water, and there's a man holding the pole.

“The truth is, if you eat that meat, the hook will catch you in your jaw, and the man will pull you out of the water. He will cut you open with a knife, roast you on a fire, and eat you, and then he will throw your remains to his cat.”

The young fish stopped. The two swam away. But when the young fish was alone, he thought to himself, “Let me investigate the truth myself, about how accurate these lousy claims are.”

So, he went back to the meat. He swam around it, above it, and below it. He swam as far as he could in widening circles around the meat.

After a long search, he said to himself, “I've looked far and wide, and I haven't found any sign of a man, a pole, a knife, a fire, or a cat. I found nothing outside this water we live in. I've come to realize my truth. These must be just stories made up to limit our freedoms.”

He went back to the meat, and he ate it. The hook caught in his jaw. He felt himself being yanked out of the water. And for sure, there he saw a pole, a man, a knife.

A little farther, he saw the man's cat sleeping in his shade. But at that point, his knowledge of the truth was useless.

It's exactly the same with the story of the great Gospel and the mysteries of the Bible. Some of them are beyond our comprehension. We don't see Satan, the angels, Our Lord, or His judgment seat. We don't see the eternal fire of hell.

But we will realize all along that this was the truth against our truth. But that time may be too late.

This meditation is about faith: faith, which is the virtue whereby we believe everything that God has revealed, not because of its intrinsic truth, but because of the authority of God who reveals it.

We're very accustomed to living by human faith. Every day, when we listen to the news, we believe the newscaster, not because of the outlandish things that the newscaster may be saying, but because he is the newscaster.

If he's there reading this news, this must be true. It would be very unusual for it to be fake news, although that may be becoming more common.

Or if we go to get on a taxi or a bus or a matatu, and it says that it's going to a certain place, we believe that it's going to that place. We don't go and ask the driver for his driving license. We don't know if he got on at the last stop, murdered the driver, and took over the vehicle.

But because he's driving, we believe that he knows his stuff. He knows how to drive, he has a license, and the vehicle is going to where we want it to go.

Without human faith, our life would be impossible. The food that we eat, we believe, is genuine, not false or plastic, because our mother or some authorized cook prepared it.

We don't believe in the truths God has revealed because we've examined each one of them and found that they're true. We believe in the authority of God who reveals.

We're called to live by faith, not just to make little acts of faith from time to time, but to live by faith.

Every day, every hour, we know that Our Father God is looking after us. We're carried in the palm of a God who loves us.

The loving hand of Our Father God is behind everything that we may see, which might be a mystery, unpleasant, a cross, a contradiction, a challenge, a piece of bad news. We know that Our Father God is there.

Yahweh said to Abraham, “Leave your country, your kindred and your father's house, for a country which I will show you” (Gen. 12:1).

When God spoke to Abraham, there was a progressive determination or specification of the command: your country, your kindred, your father's house.

Each time, the command was something closer to his heart. “Leave these places for a country which I will show you.”

It's to an undisclosed destination. God asks Abraham to go forward in faith.

In the First Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass, we refer to Abraham as “our father in faith.” Every father and mother of a family can get great inspiration from the example of Abraham.

There may be times in our family life, in our professional work, in our finances, in our health, in all aspects of our life when we're called to journey forward in faith, when we don't know exactly where we're going, but we do know that God is leading us.

When the Holy Family set out from Nazareth for Bethlehem, they didn't have a reservation in Bethlehem. They didn't know what was going to happen.

Joseph must have had to think about all the possibilities. Mary could have given birth along the way. But they went forward in faith, trusting in God.

When there was no room at the inn (Luke 2:7), when they were met with bad news, rejection, lack of hospitality, contradictions, Joseph didn't throw his hat on the ground and say, ‘I've had enough, I'm going home.’ He looked for a solution, a model for all fathers of families.

He was solution-oriented. He realized, ‘If the doors are shut in our face, God must have some other plan.’

He began to look for the solution and he found the stable in Bethlehem. That was the place that God had planned for all eternity for His Son to be born.

He destined it to become a focal point of family life and warmth for all eternity. This was a fruit of the virtue of Joseph. He made that unlikely place into a place of warmth, of faith, of hope, of joy, that lightens up all of our hearts.

Later, the Holy Family was told to flee into Egypt at a moment's notice: no job, no security, a foreign country, different language, major contradictions. They were told, “Stay there until I tell you.” (Matt. 2:13). ‘Remain there.’

There may be many periods of our lives when we are also told to remain in this situation, in this house, with this insecurity, without knowing what's going to happen tomorrow, or what God's plans are.

This is all tied up in the command that God gave to Abraham: “And I shall make you a great nation. I shall bless you and make your name famous; you are to be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2).

It may be that the situations that God leads us into are situations where He wants us to grow in faith; to be a pillar of faith in our family, in our community, in our society; to be an example of faith to our children and people around us, so that they learn from our faith, and trust in God what real faith means.

If ever God sweeps the feet from under us, or we come to a blank wall, it's because He wants us to look up; learn what real faith is, what real hope is.

“‘And I shall bless those who bless you and shall curse those who curse you. And all the clans on earth will bless themselves by you.’ So Abram went, as Yahweh told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran” (Gen. 12:3-4).

“He went.” He was obedient to the plans of God.

We're told that some time later, “God put Abraham to the test. ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ he said. And Abraham replied, ‘Here I am’” (Gen. 22:1).

In all these moments when God called, Abraham replies. He’s available. He's there. He doesn't run off and hide. He responds with faith to all these challenges.

“God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, your beloved Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, where you are to offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall point out to you’” (Gen. 22:2).

Again, there's a progressive specification of the command: “Take your son, your only son, your beloved Isaac.” Each time it's something closer to his heart.

Remember that God had told Abraham that he was going to be a father of many nations, and this son, Isaac, was the means for that to come about (cf. Gen. 17:1-8).

Now God is saying, “Take your son…offer him as a burnt offering.”

Early next morning, Abraham saddled his donkey and took with him two of his servants and his son, Isaac. Again, Abraham obeys. He is a man of faith. To respond with faith and trust in God is always the way to go.

We grow in that supernatural faith through the sacraments: regular Confession and regular Communion.

Each time we receive the sacraments, we get an outpouring of grace into our soul—the supernatural virtues of faith, of hope, and of charity.

This is the way we grow in these virtues, so that we can make those acts of faith, and we can live by faith in the ordinary challenges of every day, which can give us a great peace and serenity, leaving things in the hands of God, trusting in Him, trying to see things as God sees them.

Often, we only see things with our own human vision, but that's not the way things are in reality. Things in reality are the way God sees them, which may be very different from the way that we see them.

There was a story of two guys who were at a party. They'd had too much to drink. One said to the other, “Why don't you go over there and ask the lady in the purple dress to dance?” The guy took on the challenge and he went over to the lady in the purple dress and asked her to dance.

The lady said, “No, for three reasons. One, you're drunk. Two, I don't dance. And three, I am the bishop of this diocese.”

This is what happens when we don't see things with the eyes of faith. Our vision is blurred. We don't see the reality. We come up with the wrong conclusions. We get it all wrong.

“And so he chopped wood for the burnt offering and started on his journey to the place which God had indicated to him. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. Then Abraham said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there. We shall worship and then come back to you.’ Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, loaded it on Isaac, and carried in his own hands the fire and the knife. And the two of them set out together (Gen. 22:3-6).

It's a rather nice image, that word “together”—father and son, unity, fulfilling the plans of God, even when they're going to be difficult.

“Isaac spoke to his father Abraham. ‘Father!’ he said. ‘Yes, my son,’ he replied.”

Abraham was available to the voice of God, but he was also available to the voice of his son.

“‘Look,’ he said, ‘here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’” (Gen. 22:7).

That question must have pierced Abraham's heart. ‘What do I tell him? How do I explain it?’ Or he could have said to him, ‘Well, have I got news for you!’

But he didn't say any of those things. “Abraham replied, ‘My son, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering’” (Gen. 22:8). In Latin, Deus providebit nos, ‘God will provide.’

There may be many situations in our lives when God leads us into situations like Abraham. He wants us to say those words and mean it, or pray to Him with those words of trust. ‘God will provide. He'll solve the problem.’

Maybe we don't know what's going to happen in the next hour or two, but we know we're in the hands of God. Nothing bad can happen to us. We trust in Him.

“And the two of them went on together.” Again, expression of unity.

“When they arrived at the place that God had indicated to him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood.”

So he prepared everything. He fulfilled to the letter the specific things that God had asked him to do, which must have taken great effort. His heart must have been breaking.

There must have been a million questions in his mind: ‘Why me? Why now? Why this? How come? It's not fair.’

But yet he fulfilled what God had asked of him. “Then he bound his son and put him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to kill his son” (Gen. 22: 9-10).

It's a very dramatic moment.

“But the Angel of Yahweh called to him from heaven, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am’” (Gen. 22:11).

At this, the eleventh hour, when the Angel called to Abraham again, Abraham could have said, ‘What is it now? Am I not doing enough?’

But the angel was to give him a very different message: “Do not raise your hand against the boy. Do not harm him, for now I know you fear God.”

Now the tables are turned. God was seeing how far Abraham was going to have faith and trust in Him: “You have not refused me your own beloved son” (Gen. 22:12).

Now this is the beginning of some very beautiful words when God, through the Angel, begins to speak to Abraham.

“And looking up, Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in the bush. Abraham took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham called the place, ‘Yahweh provides’; and hence, the saying today, ‘On the mountain, Yahweh provides’” (Gen 22:13-14).

We don't know what plans God may have behind the things He asks of us, what great things he may want to achieve in us and through us—possibly, miracles.

I was at a meeting of some pro-life people in another country one time, and there was a nun speaking. She was talking about somebody who perhaps should have been a bit more pro-life than they were, and she said a phrase, “I believe in miracles.”

I was a bit struck by those words. We read a lot about miracles, but it's not often you hear people saying, “I believe in miracles.”

We are supposed to be people who believe in miracles—miracles that God wants to work in and through our hands, miracles of faith, of hope, of love, of family life, of fidelity, of perseverance, of fortitude, of building up your children to be great human beings, people of virtue who can take their place in the world, who can earn their eternal salvation in their heaven, who can influence their environment and lift the spiritual temperature around them—wonderful miracles that God wants to work in us and through us.

“The Angel of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and he said, ‘I swear by myself, Yahweh declares, that because you have done this, because you have not refused me your beloved son…” (Gen. 22:15-16).

And now the tender heart of Our Father God begins to be revealed. God is so impressed, so happy with the faith that Abraham has shown.

Whenever Christ found faith in the people He was speaking to, He was always very moved.

“When the centurion said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof’” (Matt. 8:8), we are told that Jesus marveledthat “I have not found such great faith even in Israel” (Matt. 8:10).

On many occasions when people came to Him with faith, Our Lord could not but turn to them and grant them what they asked for.

“Go in peace, your faith has saved you” (Luke 7:50). There seems to be nothing that warms the Heart of Christ so much as people of faith, even when the man cries out, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief (Mark 9:23).

“Go in peace, your son now lives” (John 4:50). He’s cured.

After charity, the virtue that is spoken most of in Scripture is faith. We get an inkling of that in the Book of Genesis, when God speaks to Abraham in this way: “because you have done this” (Gen. 22:15).

Sometimes God wants us to show our faith with our actions, not just sweet words; show that we really believe, or we really want to believe.

Or like that father in the Gospel, we believe, but we realize we are so short on faith, and we need more.

“God said, ‘I will shower blessings on you, I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will gain possession of the gates of their enemies’” (Gen. 22:17-18).

Next time you are on a beach look at the grains of sand, of how many grains of sand are there on the sea shore. It's a very beautiful and eloquent description, “as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

There are great benefits that come from leading a life of faith: “All nations on earth will bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed my command” (Gen. 22:18).

If we walk along the pathway of our Christian vocation as a Christian mother and as a Christian father, we will be fulfilling the commands of God, the callings that He makes to us.

Every day He makes a new calling along the journey of our life. We know that He is ultimately preparing us for the future, for all the wonderful things He has prepared for us, and specifically for the eternal wedding feast. We have to weave our wedding garment.

Like the apostles, we can say to Our Lord, “Increase my faith!” (Luke 17:5).

Or in this period when we're sort of wondering what's going to happen next, with the pandemic and all the other things that come with it, left turn here, the right turn there, the words of Scripture of Our Lord can be very relevant: “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

‘Be still and know that I am God, if I brought you complications in your work, in your health, in your family, if the future doesn't look so clear, if you have a whole pile of questions, if I seem to be dangling the whole world on a thread and proving to the whole world that with one tiny virus I can change everything.’

Maybe it's time to look up a little more to realize the very relative value of material things and everything in this world which is passing; to help people around us, especially in our family, to react with faith in this moment; to turn a little more to the sacraments even if that's a bit more difficult; to take care of the things of our soul, which are immortal, which will last forever.

And so, “Be still and know that I am God.”

“If your faith was the size of a mustard seed, it would say to this mountain, ‘Be rooted up and cast into the sea’ and it would obey you” (Mark 11:23).

On many occasions, Our Lord invites us to grow in virtue. He says, “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23).

He calls us to think with faith, to act with faith, to plan with faith, to work with faith, to pray with faith, to have faith in our marriage vocation, faith in our family, in our apostolate, in the sacraments, in the means that God has given to us.

In the Gospel, we're given the example of St. Thomas, who refused to believe what the other apostles have told him.

It's an interesting example of stubborn disbelief: “Unless I put my hand into his side and my finger into his wounds, I will not believe” (cf. John 20:25).

But then he ends up saying, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Our Lord wants us to react with faith in all the little things of every day.

The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us. The task of the education of my children: the task of repeating to them 500 times what they need to do, knowing that they'll only guess on the 501st; the task of teaching them little chores or virtues, and giving them an example of virtue and of holiness in the ordinary things.

All of this has the power behind us to convert them, to build them up into great souls.

We can entrust “the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love, the future to God's providence” (attrib. to St. Augustine).

If we look at the history of the Church, we see that Christianity has been the great motor of change in the world. Great things have been achieved. We can be enormously proud of our Church.

The Church is the number one healthcare worker in the world, and one of the greatest educators, particularly with Standards.

God has given a great light to the world in and through His Church and through each one of us.

God is pure light. But sometimes our eyes are not capacitated for the light. We're told in Scripture, “The fool says in his heart there is no God” (Ps. 14:1).

We may not understand the ways of God, which may be very different from our own. But we do know that God is acting. He's bringing things out for the best.

Only in the light of faith does our life make sense, in our self-giving, in our work, in everything that our marriage vocation brings with it.

In The Forge, St. Josemaría says, “Sometimes the immediate future is full of worries, if we stop seeing things in a supernatural way. So, faith, my child, faith…and more deeds. In that way it is certain that Our Father God will continue to solve your problems” (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 657).

“Work on to the end,” he says, “to the very end! My child, ‘it is the one who perseveres right to the end who will be saved’ (cf. Matt. 24:13). We children of God have the means we need: you too! We will finish, we will top out our building, for we can do all things in Him who strengthens us’ (cf. Phil. 4:13). With God there are no impossibles. They are overcome always” (Ibid., Point 656).

The educative role of marriage and family never ends. All the time we are giving an example of virtue to those who come after us: a peace, a serenity, a joy that comes from leaving everything in the hands of God, knowing that ultimately, He will work things out.

But very often He wants our cooperation. We can try to have more faith in the ordinary things of every day, in our professional work, in the demands that may come with it: the tensions, the stresses, the anxieties, the discouragements, the failures in our apostolic life, faith in the future and everything that we bring with it.

Tough times don't last. Tough people do.

Throughout Scripture, we see a lot of examples of people who fulfilled what God asked.

‘At your word, I will lower the net. We've toiled all night and caught nothing.’ If I say there are no fish then there are no fish. I know the mobile and email of every fish in this lake. I know what I'm talking about. I'm a professional.

“But at your word, I will lower the net.” They caught a great catch of fish (Luke 5:5-6).

We can ask God to respond with faith to whatever we're told, whatever God says to us. Faith in God very often is expressed in faith in the means.

We probably have faith that someday we'll get to heaven. But faith in the means, that this day, this hour, this cross, is the means God has given me to get to heaven? That's not so clear.

Sometimes Our Lord wants us to respond with heroic sacrifice, to put our faith into practice in very concrete ways. And the devil is there continually inviting us to forget about faith.

Our Lord asks us to see His hand behind the earthquake, or the tsunami, or the air crash, or the famine, or the bad answer we get from someone, or all sorts of other things.

Our Lady did not understand the words of the angel, but she fulfilled those words. She said, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38).

She put that faith into practice by going into the hill country. Her faith gave rise to an act of charity.

With Our Lady, we can ask Our Lord for the grace to have greater faith in the means: in our Mass each day, in our family life, faith to put the demands of our spiritual life first, the norms of our plan of life when maybe, there's pressure of other things, faith to put our apostolate first, faith to get over any fear of the cross, faith in our regular sacramental Confession, faith in the face of our own personal weakness.

“If God is with us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31). Faith in our charity.

We know that God will still work miracles. “The hand of God,” said Scripture, “has not been held back, has not been weakened” (cf. Isa. 59:1).

We could also ask Our Lord for the grace to have a more infectious faith, so that we can infect more people. If this virus has infected so many people, Lord, help me to infect the same number of people with my contagious faith.

When Pope St. John Paul II talks about Our Lady in relation to faith, he calls her “a woman of faith.”

But he added another phrase. He said, “She was a woman of faith that is put into practice” (Richard Lenar, Pope John Paul II on Mary’s Faith).

That nuance is very rich. It wasn't just a nebulous, theoretical faith. It was put into practice. She went with haste into the hill country (Luke 1:39).

We could ask Our Lady, that she might help us each day to go into that hill country that God may be beckoning to us, knowing that there we also will find the Holy Spirit.

“The moment the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you for your believing” (Luke 1:44-45). Elizabeth was the first to compliment the faith of Mary.

Mary, may you help us also to have that type of faith.

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.

BWM