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Faith. What is it?
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen.” So says the Letter to the
Hebrews ( Heb 11:1). So there is the answer.
But what does the answer mean? In the
Gospel, Jesus makes it simple.
Too simple.
“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would
say to [this] mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in
the sea,’ and it would obey you.”
No, no, this cannot be true! We repeat, what is faith?
(1) Here is a first level of meaning. You believe that
various cities around the world exist, even though you
have never actually been in them. Moscow, Katmandu,
Mooresville Indiana, etc. And you make plans with a friend
for dinner without having to worry if you just imagined
that person and they don’t really exist! You have
conviction of things (or persons) not seen. Thus you have
faith, of a basic, everyday sort.
(2) A second level of meaning for faith involves
relationship. With a friend you have a kind of assurance
that he or she will be loyal to you, will be true to the
promise contained in friendship. Your friend’s love will
not expire. There is a mutual kinship here, and this is
often Jesus’ meaning of the word, faith.
Problem: relational faith of this kind includes moments
when just the opposite seems true. A friend has turned
away. You are hurt. Some of us avoid having any close
relationships at all, just for fear of such a thing! Yet
all of us need friendship, achieved with trust, gradually
and prudently. We need to love and be loved, whatever else
might happen.
We see this kind of trust in the
First Reading. The writer speaks to God with great emotion, the way a
deserted friend might. “How long, O Lord? I cry for help
but you do not listen. Why do you let me see ruin? Why
must I look at misery?” Pain, openly expressed.
(3) So the question progresses to the third and highest
level: why is waiting a part of faith?
Surprisingly, in this case, God answers. “The vision still
has its time,” he says in the First Reading. It “presses
on to fulfillment, and it will not disappoint. If it
delays, wait for it, it will surely come.”
Consoling. But why we must wait, wait for repayment of our
innocent desires, for help that acts now and does not
consist of promises for the future?
If you think about it, any relationship simply has to
deepen over time, because its roots are hidden in the
inmost recesses of our souls. You do not get to be an
intimate friend of someone in twenty minutes. The hidden
parts of the relationship must emerge, and it takes time.
Above we said that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped
for, the conviction of things not seen.”
• “Hoped for” because friendship with God is rooted so
deep within us that we cannot force it. We must wait.
• A “thing not seen” because it is nestled within the
transcendental underside of our own soul. How could it be
seen? It simply has to emerge through time.
• “It will surely come.” Come to fullness within us, to a
comfort of closeness with the living God.
John Foley S. J.
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