By Fr. Roy Cimagala
THAT is how we should be. Our life does not contend only with the things of nature. It has to contend with spiritual and supernatural realities that often are shrouded in so deep and thick mysteries that no matter how much we try, we can never understand them fully. We should just rely on the faith God, the Creator and Author of everything, shares with us.
We are reminded of this condition of our life in that gospel episode where Christ, after telling his disciples that they have to eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood to be with Christ, left them completely astonished. “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” was their reaction. (Jn 6,60)
Faith is our way of tackling with the infinite, the spiritual and supernatural mysteries in our life. And since this is a life-long condition of ours, we have to understand that our life is a life of faith. We are not ruled only by reason and will, much less by feelings and instincts alone.
We are designed for faith. In spite of the mysteries in our life, sooner or later, we end up just believing in something. Even if one were to say that he does not believe in anything, that position alone is already an act of faith.
While there can be an endless variety of beliefs, the distinctive mark of the Christian faith is that it comes from outside and above us. It’s supernatural. It’s not completely subjective nor merely human. It’s based on a revelation that has Christ at its center and as its fullness. It is God sharing his knowledge with us.
Our reasoning and intelligence should always be guided by faith. Otherwise, it has no other way but to fall into making its own world, its own narrative, that can contain a lot of facts and reasonable arguments and points, but will definitely miss the most important and original truth—everything related to God.
We should just imitate the faith, for example, of Our Lady who at the Annunciation asked at first how she could conceive the Son of God. When she was told that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and she will then conceive the son of God in her womb, definitely she could understand how that was to be, and yet she just said in great faith, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word.” (Lk 1,38) And she conceived the very son of God.
Another example is that of St. Peter who, when told by Christ to go into the deep water and lay out the net for a catch, at first responded, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have not caught anything,” but later, because of his faith, said: “But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” And a big haul of fish was caught. (cfr. Lk 5,5)
When we are guided by faith, we can start to share the very life, nature and power of God. We can manage to have hope of things taught to us by Christ even if at the moment they look impossible to take place. More importantly, we can manage to have more or less the same love Christ has shown us and has commanded us to have. It’s a love that goes beyond human standards since it includes loving even our enemies.
We should try our best to live by faith always that would enrich and enable our human reasoning to enter into the world of God, and not just trapped in the things of the natural world.
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
