Homily: Living Faith

HOMILY FOR 19th SUNDAY OF YEAR C

Fr John Kavanaugh, an American Jesuit, once shared an encounter he had with Mother Teresa at the House of the Dying in Kolkata. He was a young man discerning his vocation and he went to work there for a month as a way to find out what he should do with his life. On the first morning, he met Mother Teresa after Mass at dawn. She asked him, “And what can I do for you?” He says he asked her to pray for him. “What do you want me to pray for?”, she asked. He asked, “Pray that I have clarity.” She said, “No.” That was that. When he asked why, she answered that clarity was the last thing he was clinging to and had to let go of. When he commented that she herself had always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, “I never have had clarity; what I’ve always had is trust. So, I will pray that you have trust.”

Today’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews contains the only explicit definition of faith in the Bible: The writer of this letter says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Another way of saying this is that faith is the guarantee of the blessings that we hope for; and faith is the proof of the existence of unseen spiritual realities. It is a deep expression of trust in God.

The author then goes on to refer to our ancestors in faith, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, and he describes the greatness of their lives and actions because of their faith. Abraham is a model of faith in the way he responded to God and journeyed like a pilgrim to a new homeland. Abraham trusted in the promises of God to him.

This text from the Letter to the Hebrews makes us think about our own faith. Perhaps we sometimes we take our faith for granted. We need to ask questions: What difference does faith make to my life? Am I better for having it, or would I be freer and happier without it?

So, what is this knowing by faith that we have within us? How would we explain it to others? Why do we believe? The reason for our being here today, is faith, however weak or strong we may think it is. Faith is part of us. Where did we get it from? What does it do for us that we want our children to have it?

Faith is certainly not a 500% uninterrupted confidence. It involves a questioning, even a holy doubting, a wrestling with God and ourselves that ends in trust. In a certain sense, though, it seems unfair to refer to faith as a guarantee or a proof, as the writer to the Hebrews does. I mean faith seems to be such a difficult thing to understand or describe as it is, and here we are referring to it as a proof and a guarantee.

So, what kind of proof or guarantee is it? Well, it is not a proof in the sense of a scientific or mathematical proof. We live in a world which depends on and for the most part respects only empirical evidence – that which we can measure with our senses – what we can see, touch, smell, hear, taste – that which we can measure and observe. And yet, if this were to be our only measure of what is real and true, we could end up with the impression the only truth and reality is that which is physical and material.

But what about love and faith and God? Certainly, love and faith and God do not fit into the realm of empirical evidence. It is true that every now and again there are miracles; but even miracles are difficult to explain or understand or prove - not impossible, but certainly difficult.

With faith, we are dealing with a knowledge or an experience that cannot be proved by empirical investigation. That certainly does not make it less real. In fact, we might ask why empirical evidence should be only source of true knowledge. Who says so? On what authority? Why should what is spiritual and what is of God, and in fact, God himself, be subject to the realm of our human empirical investigation? It would be like reducing the love between two people to chemical equations or describing the beauty of a painting in terms of algebra.

Surely God and the spiritual world would be in a dimension beyond the scrutiny and measure of the senses and empirical proof? In fact, wouldn’t we be disappointed if God, who is creator and origin of all things, including all things scientific and rational, would then be subject to the laws of his own creation? That would be like an author being determined by the world he has created in a novel, or an artist by his or her painting. God is necessarily much greater and beyond what he has created.

Even so, faith is not irrational or illogical. Faith answers the “why” questions, whereas science can only at best answer the “how” and “what” questions. It takes faith to know God and the things of God, which are spiritual realities beyond our material world. Honest agnostics and atheists admit the question that most challenges them is, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

Perhaps you have heard of the French mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, who was also a very devout Catholic. Apart from his scientific contributions, one thing he is famous for is what is called, Pascal’s wager. The wager here is a wager in the sense of a bet or a gamble.

In this wager, Pascal said that if a person were to live their whole life according to faith, knowing the existence of God by faith, and then at the moment of death, after this life, it became evident that none of it was true, then such a person would not have gained anything, but neither would they have lost anything. However, if a person were to live their whole life without faith, not believing in the existence of God and what that requires of each of us, and at the moment of death, after this life, it became evident that God does exist, then that person would have lost everything. Pascal summed it all up by saying, living by faith means that you either gain everything or lose nothing, whereas, not living by faith you either lose everything or gain nothing. So, faith is a win or not-lose position.

We are taught that faith is a supernatural gift from God. You and I did nothing to deserve the gift of faith. It is a gift of love from the God who loves each one of us. It is gift of love precisely because it works for our happiness and wholeness as human beings. Faith is something precious and important. We can ask for faith in prayer, and we can ask for an increase in faith.

But our faith can also be weakened or lost altogether. Sin and neglect of the practice of faith can cause that. Faith needs to be practiced for it to grow strong and for it to increase, together with God’s help.

In the Gospel Jesus tells us: Do not be afraid, little flock ... have faith. We are called to respond in faith. We are called to see in God the true treasure. Practicing faith will challenge everything about our lives as human beings - our attitude to possessions, our service to others, and how and for whom we live our lives. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also.” Jesus asks his disciples to trust, to surrender to the love and mercy of God.