Without
intentionally planning it, I have come to notice that the last two reflections
that I wrote for the Second and Third Sunday of Advent corresponded to the two
Theological Virtues of Hope and Charity. Therefore, it only seems fitting that
this reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Advent to focus on the Virtue of
Faith. A beautiful quote from the book The Little Prince is most appropriate
for the beginning of our reflecting on Faith,
“Now here is my secret. It is very simple.
It is only with one’s heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is
invisible to the eye.”
Today’s
world is being invaded more and more by secularism. Less and less people
believe in a higher power. They aren’t quite as interested in proving God’s
existence as disproving it and casting it into the category of silly
superstition. What’s the point of having faith in God, for having faith in him
means being dependent on him and placing confidence in him? As technology
progresses, mankind finds itself more independent. We think we have become gods
ourselves, hence there isn’t a need for a God. Why believe in someone you can
neither see nor touch when you can pretty much have anything done with the
power of science? When everything seems very possible, people believe less in
the impossible.
The crisis
of faith in today’s world, I believe, isn’t about whether or not God exists as
much as about whether or not we need God.
Faith, at
the core, has always been the matter of the heart. The eye of faith is the eye
of the heart where, as Paschal wrote, “it has reason that reason knows not.”
People in
our world today find it hard to have faith because faith challenges us to let
go of what the mind cannot comprehend to simply let the heart believe.
The Gospel
recounts Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth. In her great joy, the
elderly lady exclaimed, “Blessed are you
who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Dear
friends, this thirteen/fourteen year virgin named Mary has become for us the
greatest model of faith, not because she knows and understand much, but because
she loves much.
When the
Angel appeared to her announcing that she would be conceived, bear a son, and
her son would be the Son of God, what crossed Mary’s mind? A whole list of impossibilities:
-
She never had relation with a man, then, the
obvious question would be: how on earth would she bear a child?
-
If she overlooked the fact that she’s a virgin,
the next thing was that she’s only simple and insignificant girl in a small
town, and her Son was destined to be the Savior?
What was Mary’s response? She
didn’t understand it, but she loved God and knew that she could fully trust him
– have faith in him – to do the impossible, and therefore she gave her “yes.”
This “yes” did not come from clarity of the intellect, but rather from a solid
confidence based on a profound relationship with the One for whom “nothing is
impossible.”
In this year of faith, the Church
asks us to grow in appreciation for our faith and strive to deepen it. It would
be entirely unattainable without a relationship with God, without allow our
hearts be captured by Love Eternal. Humanly speaking, no one, in their right
mind, puts faith in a stranger. Same goes with faith in God.
In a few days, we will be
celebrating the Birthday of the Lord. The Incarnation is, by nature, a mystery
of faith which puzzles many. How could an almighty God strip himself of all
glory and be born in the form of a baby so weak? By reason, it would never make
sense. However, with the eye of the heart – the eye of faith – the answer is
quite simple: Love; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”
Those who believe in God are those
who believe in love for God is love. They have a relationship with love. They
depend on love.
Entering these final days of
preparation for Christmas, let us pause a moment to examine our relationship
with our God. Ask ourselves how committed are we to this relationship, because,
friends, this relationship is the same measure of our faith in him. If you find
ourselves not doing so good, perhaps, we should muster some humility to ask him
to draw us closer to him, thus our faith, in turn, can me strengthened.
Finally, Christmas is also a
celebration of our faith in a promise fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ
born in Bethlehem and in a promise which will be fulfilled at his return one
day. Since December 17th, the Church has been praying in her Vespers
the O Antiphons – the seven titles of the Messiah: O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord),
O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse),
O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O
Dayspring), O Rex Gentium (O King of the nations), and O Emmanuel (O
With Us is God). If you take the first
letters of these titles and put them in reverse order, you will find the phrase
“Ero Cras,” translated as “Tomorrow,
I will come.”
That is his promise, friends.
Do you believe it?
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