What's the Question?

 If there is anything clear from Biblical history, it is that faith developed not from religion but from an encounter with the Living God.  All we know about Abraham's previous life is that he was probably a pagan. living in Ur with its local gods and pagan practices.  "Come out of there," spoke the Voice that Abraham eventually followed.  "Come to a place I will show you."  

And in the New Testament, we see Jesus responding to Nathaniel's question "Where are you staying?" by answering, "Come and see."  

In both cases, (as in all the other cases), men were invited to walk with God, to ask Him questions and to listen for His answers.  Their faith was not handed to them in a set of answers to questions they had not asked; rather, it grew by companionship, by a gradual trust in a God who walked with them and spoke with them on the way. 

Faith is born of experience with God, rather than from theology, or "right thinking."  Even with those schooled from childhood in right thinking, or even in the Scriptures, sooner or later, it is an encounter with the living God that is the seed of faith.  Without that encounter -- and the eventual communion of Spirit that follows -- faith is empty and barren.

For many of us, even for those who have been faithfully practicing religion for many years, the Encounter begins with a question, the answer to which remains for us remote and distant from our experience. Abraham's question to God was, "How can I know [that what You promised me is true?]  And what followed that question was an experience that Abraham could never forget! (See Genesis 15).

Our faith is based on our experience of God being with us.  Our theology helps us to comprehend and to explain our experience -- to put it into words for others.  And our theology helps us to pass on our faith, in a way, to at least open the mind of another to the possibility that God is with us, despite appearances to the contrary.  There is a saying:  The man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

"But I've never had an experience with God!" most people will claim.  And I want to say, "Have you ever asked Him a question?"  A question is like an invitation to communion; it is the door opening to Jesus' invitation: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens to me, I will come in and sup with him and he with me" (Rev. 3:20).  

God is all about Revelation --- He wants to reveal Himelf to us! But He waits for our question, our invitation, our asking.  "Ask of me!" He says, "and I will give you!"  The reason we do not ask is either because we believe we really don't need Him --- humans are smart enough to figure it out on our own, thank you very much!  Or we believe we are too small for Him to really care about; as many people have said, "God has bigger things to think about than my little problems!"  We are either too big or too small for God!

All of this rumination stems from the testimony I heard yesterday from a young boy who had been raised Catholic but who had not been practicing his faith for some years.  Rather, he had been attending a high school where he was being indoctrinated almost daily by his Muslim friends.  Finally, he went to the Mosque and began asking questions.  When he came home late, his mom asked where he had been and he told her. She slapped him and angrily said, "You go to church right now and ask Jesus: do You want me to be a Muslim or a Catholic?  If Jesus tells you to be a Muslim, I will not oppose you!"

The young man telling his story said that that was the first time in his life he had ever really prayed from the heart.  He sincerely asked Jesus what he should do, as the testimony of his friends was relentless and powerful.  For a half hour, nothing happened, but the young man waited.  Then he had a strong image of Jesus standing before the tabernacle and asking him, "Do you really want to turn your back on all I have done for you?"  The experience was so strong that went back to his friends with full confidence that he wanted to ramain Catholic and Christian, though he also remained friends with the boys throughout high school and beyond.

If this were not already too long, I would tell you my question too -- but that's for another day.  Today, I ask, "What's your question?"

God Has Nothing to Do!

 As I opened my morning reading from the Book of Wisdom, I delighted to find this:

Resplendent and unfading is Wisdom, and she is readily perceived by those who love her, and found by those who seek her.  She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her; one who watches for her at dawn will not be disappointed, for she will be found sitting at the gate.  For setting your heart on her is the perfection of prudence, and whoever keeps vigil for her is quickly free from care; Because she makes her rounds, seeking those worthy of her, and graciously appears to them on the way, and goes to meet them with full attention.

Really, can anything be more beautiful and encouraging to read first thing in the morning?  To find Wisdom "sitting at my gate" with "full attention"?  Wow!

Actually, I began to feel sorry for those reading their Protestant Bibles, the ones from which Martin Luther removed the Book of Wisdom for whatever reason made sense to him.  As much as my friends and neighbors love their bibles, I know they would love the Book of Wisdom --- if they only had it.  But then my sorrow extended to those who have no bible at all, or to those who have a bible but don't read it.  How will they ever know that Wisdom is "making her rounds, seeking those worthy of her, and going to meet them with full attention"?

I have often quoted Bishop Barron's analogy of God as a helicopter pilot hovering over our lives, just waiting for us to clear a space for Him to land.  Differnt analogy, same difference!

In his preface to Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict xvi) traces the history of belief -- or lack of belief --- in God throughout history.  With Marx's theology, the real power of salvation comes through politics and economics.  We don't really need Wisdom; God is not really "practical."  We have not really denied God; He is simply no longer needed in regard to the reality that mankind has to deal with today.  He has nothing to do, according to Ratzinger:

We have come to regard the depths of our being as, in the last analysis, unfathomable.  We have limited ourselves to our own perspective, to the visible in the widest sense, to what can be seized in our measuring grasp. [Natural science] suffices us. We can deal with it and thus create for ourselves a world in which we can live as men.

I find that world depressing..... to find God/ Wisdom irrelevant? When Abraham ran into the limits of human possibility, into the impossibility of producing a child at the age of 100, God's answer was to take him outside to gaze at the stars -- at the world beyond reason and human possibilities:  Look, Abraham:  can you count the stars? Your descendents will be without number!  And Abraham believed, not because he could measure and count and control -- but because Wisdom had spoken in his heart.

Call me a fool, a silly goose.  But tomorrow at dawn, when you look for me, you will find me at the front gate, seeking Wisdom and gazing at the stars above!

 

A Childlike Faith

 Faith is Confidence in God's willingness and ability to be with us in all circumstances.

When I was a small child, about two years old, I was playing in the back yard one day while our next door neighbor was hanging her wash on the clothesline.  Our back yards then, according to my mother, were "the size of a postage stamp," so I was practically at her side when suddenly a clothespin snapped in two.

"Give it to me," I said with confidence, "my daddy can fix anything!"  With a smile at the confidence of a child who did not yet know that clothespins cannot be fixed, she handed me the broken pieces, and I immediately took them to my daddy, who was working in the tiny garage beside the yard.  When I turned my back, he simply reached into the bag and brought out an unbroken clothespin.  Proudly, I brought the "fixed" clothespin to my neighbor and said "See, I told you my daddy can fix anything."

In my adult life, I heard many sermons on the importance of "having faith in God," but now, wise to the ways of the world and to the impossibility of fixing broken clothespins, I used to wonder how one was to acquire this faith.  I knew God loved us, but I figured He expected us to solve our own problems with His help --- kind of like morally supporting us in our challenges.  I really did not expect Him to solve the problems Himself.  After all, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, "God gave us a brain and he expects us to use it."  No doubt!

Here is what I failed to know and realize for many years:  Yes, God has given us both brains and brawn, and yes, He expects us to use both --- under the anointing and direction of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide.  The word "Advocate" comes from the Latin ad (to, toward) and vocare (called);  it is actually a legal term in Latin, as in the sense of a lawyer, one who is called to our defense to support and uphold us when we are weak and helpless to help ourselves.

At the Last Supper, as He was preparing to leave His apostles, Jesus promised that He would send us "the Gift of the Father," the ADVOCATE.  "Another Advocate," He called the Holy Spirit, meaning that Jesus Himself is our first Advocate, but since we could no longer ask Him in person for help, He was sending to us the Holy Spirit.

Faith is Confidence in God's willingness and ability to be with us in all circumstances.

He does not negate our brains or our brawn; He directs both and shows us how to use them both. He strengthens our inner man so that we are no longer helpless victims of fear.

One of the first actions of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to direct our attention to the Word of God, and He usually puts us in good company to help us read and rely on what we are slowly learning --- that God has been with us from the beginning and that His resources are infinite:  He has lots and lots of clothespins at hand to supply our need.  Slowly, slowly, we begin to actually believe that He is willing and able to be a part of our lives and to help us in all circumstance.

At first, we are reluctant to let go of our self-reliance:  "God helps those who help themselves," as the saying goes.  Slowly, reading the Bible, we begin to see and to believe that God helps those who cannot help themselves.  Usually, it is coming face to face with our own inability to help ourselves that makes us reluctantly ask for God's help.  And when He answers us, we want to say it really wasn't God at all, but some other cause:  "We were so lucky," we tend to say!  

Unless we are saints like the Little Flower, whose mother died when she was four, it takes us a lifetime to grow into child-like faith, into people who truly have confidence in God's willingness and ability to be with us in all circumstances.  

I think I have written recently about God's Word to me when I struggled with my cancer diagnosis last year:  You shall see for yourself that all things will be well and all manner of things shall be well (from Julian of Norwich).  I have repeated those words to myself many times during the past year -- and now a new blood test has revealed that there are no cancer cells in my blood!

Yes, I have been taking Ivermectin all year, and yes, I did have a round of chemotherapy in the form of a pill.  I do not discount at all these things --- but Who is it that made it even possible for meet to meet and befriend someone who has been taking Ivermectin for 5 years, who convinced me to try it and supported my doubts with videos from reliable sources?  Not only that, but he has been so gracious and willing to obtain the Ivermectin from India for me!  (Rely on my own brains and brawn?  I was helpless as a babe in the woods in this case!)  I have a wonderful oncologist who was willing and able to find an oral drug to spare me from infusions.  God delights in using secondary causes and directing us to help when and where we need it!  I have experienced this over and over through the years.  An Advocate of our freedom of choice, He always allows us to say, "It only thundered" when others have heard the Voice of God speaking from heaven (see John 12:29).