The challenge of developing a vibrant faith

IN SPITE of the many signs and proofs that point to the credibility and necessity of faith, many people of Christ’s time still asked for signs to prove Christ was the expected Messiah. (cfr. Lk 11,29-32)

Here is one of Christ’s lamentations over this sad condition: “At the judgment, the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here.”

We cannot deny that we are notorious for having the same condition. In spite of the many things that truly point to why our Christian faith is credible and effective, we still prefer to be guided by our own estimation of things.

The following point in the Catechism tells us how our faith is to be properly understood and what motives we can have for regarding our faith as credible:

“#156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe ‘because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

“So ‘that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps the Holy Spirit.’ Thus, the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability ‘are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all’;

“They are ‘motives of credibility’ which show that the assent of faith is ‘by no means a bind impulse of the mind.’”

Just the same, we really need to train ourselves to be always guided by faith and not just by our own reasoning, no matter how brilliant our reasoning may sound. This, of course, will require tremendous humility and self-denial on our part, since we always tend to rely more on our human powers.

Of course, faith would require the full use of our intelligence and reasoning. But we need to acknowledge that there are revealed truths of our faith, the so-called mysteries, that can exceed our power to understand. In other words, we are not expected to understand everything, but rather are expected to obey and believe these revealed truths due in the end to the fact that it is taught to us by Christ himself and now by the Church.

To be effectively and abidingly guided by our faith, it is important that we pause from time to time to see if we truly have our faith in God as the main guide, and not just our own reasoning and understanding.

It’s important that we do some disciplining of our reasoning because it tends to get contented only with the sensible and the intelligible in the many forms that they come and attract us. It can willingly let itself be held hostage by these dimensions of reality.

We know that our reason does not create the truth. It does not create the reality. It can only apprehend, reflect, process and transmit the truth and reality. It will always depend on a reality that is outside and independent of ourselves. And that reality goes beyond the natural and enters into the world of the spiritual and supernatural.