What is faith?
At the
moment we are engaged in the year of faith. It is a year of deepening our
relationship with the person of Jesus. It is a year where we can learn a little
more about our own faith. There are maybe many different things that in our Catholic
faith we do not agree with. We find hard to follow. This is where we can see the Gospel message
today. Bartimaeus a blind man was scolded by the people around him. But, he was
asked to have “Courage.”
This then is
the first thing that we need to have courage is an important attribute to have
in our faith. The one thing that I think that we may have lost in the Christian
religion is this courage. We have almost gone the other way by apologizing for
our faith we fail to have the courage to stand up for what we believe. I firmly
believe that if we do not stand up and be counted then we are failing in our
duty as Christians.
Notice also that Bartimaeus is asked to have
courage by his friends. This shows us that we need to be supported by our
friends in our faith by their prayers and encouragement.
Sometimes we need to stand up for our faith: Remember
the case with Ann Widdecombe sometime ago who stood up for the woman who wanted
to wear cross and a chain to work. So when we do stand up for what we believe it even makes the national news
and is a debate about it. We need courage because we live in a world that is
lacking the faith that we in this Church have.
The other
thing that we do not do very well is to have the sight to see where faith has
worked in the world and the fruits of the faith. In the psalm we recite “What marvels the Lord worked for us! Indeed
we were glad.” And yet do we really believe that the Lord has done great
works for us? Or are we blind to the Lord’s work. Often in my own life I get
glimpses of the wonders the Lord has done for others but find it hard to find
it for myself. I need to be reminded of the great works the Lord has done in my
own life.
So then what
can we say the word faith is? So faith then is God’s unconditional love for us
and our tentative response.
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