Things will be getting very busy for me here in the next week as I will take on teaching my first class ever. At 8AM. The thought is a little scary, but everyone thinks I can handle it, so I guess I should just have a little faith in myself!
So.. that's what this blog post will be about - FAITH. It's a simple word; it gets used alot. But do we know the true meaning behind it?
According to Merriam-Webster, faith is "something that is believed especially with strong conviction." Wikipedia says it's "the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines faith on many levels. First of all, faith is a grace (a gift of God) "Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth."
Furthermore, faith is a certainty because it is founded in God and His word. But it (that is, faith) seeks understanding because the believer "desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love." Essentially, St. Augustine sums it all up with this quote: "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe."
But I could go and give definitions all day long and still not have a clear idea of what faith really is. These definitions are helpful, but I think that to have faith in something means that you believe in that thing, whatever it is, wholeheartedly, even if you're the only person who believes in it. This is perhaps the hardest situation in which to keep the faith, because it's easy to just jump on a bandwagon with everyone else. It's not easy to go against the grain.
Christ points out in Matthew 18: 3-4 that
unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven.Here we can see that having the faith of a child is important - which makes knowing definitions like the ones I mentioned earlier fall pretty far down the list of priorities (though, it's always good to know what we believe in - it's cyclical like that!) The innocence of today's children is gone - children today are growing up faster than ever before. Our society has placed great value on things that aren't as important as they are made out to be while values like Faith, Hope, and Charity are left out of the public sphere and are basically forgotten. The expression "to have the faith of a child" is lost on many, because to have faith in something these days is seen very sparsely.
So how do we restore this value - having faith in anything? Having faith in God, yourself, your family, what you're doing in life? How is this brought back and made important again to the mainstream? I'm not sure I know the answer to that - but it desperately needs to be accomplished, before we lose our faith entirely...
What are your thoughts, readers? How can we restore FAITH again?
+JMJ+
4 comments:
I could say so much here, because I'm currently going through a scary situation myself, but instead I'm just going to say thank you. This post was so, very comforting for me to read. And it helps more than you can imagine!
I'm so glad, Alisha! It was one of those posts that I just started writing and I had no idea where I was going to end up with it! Then I wasn't even sure if I was done with it.. but I couldn't think of anything else to say... I guess that means you're done then!
My dad almost always always tells me to Keep the Faith every time we talk... and every time afterwards I'm perplexed as to what that really means, but I stand strong in my desire to keep that faith.. whatever it is!
While holding up a one dollar bill, Father Willey once said in his 6 word homily "In God We Trust. Do we?" the same rings true for the word "faith." Do we really have it? Faith, that is? I do not believe that there is a person alive who has not felt at one time or another that their measure of "faith" was shallow...that doubts and fears were sometimes stronger than anything else at that particular moment. That is the time when God picks us up and carries us(like in the Foot Prints poem)... because otherwise the devil would prevail..."if you listen with your heart you will hear the music of the woods"...an old Indian adage...the music of the woods is certainly God's voice whispering "Follow me, I will lead you home." What better assurance of faith...that special something that makes you who you are and allows you tie a knot when you feel you are at the end of your rope.(It is easier to hold on to the knot than the slippery rope)
Great insights. Doubt and fear and not quite having full trust is something I deal with on a fairly daily basis... and reading this, I know I'm not alone - but when you're in the thick of it, it's hard to feel like anyone else understands!
Thanks for your comment! I especially like the old Indian adage... :)
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