19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 7, 2022
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
Rising Tide of Unbelief
Over a century ago, the famous lawyer and libertarian, Clarence Darrow, said this: “I believe that religion is the belief in future life and in God. I don’t believe in either as I don’t believe in Mother Goose.” While the quote is old, the sentiment is contemporary. To-day, increasing numbers of people say that they no longer believe in God, that they reject the notion of an after-life, and that they have left organized religion. This is especially true of young people, many of whom are Catholics. And we ask, “What’s going on?”
For some, religious faith seems unreasonable and anti-scientific. For others, religious faith seems like an ethical straightjacket. For still others, scandalous behavior on the part of believers leads to unbelief … but this is not the only way believers can undermine the faith of others. Believers can compartmentalize their faith, making it only a limited, circumscribed part of their lives, or keep it in reserve for emergencies, or resort to it only when they need comfort, or use it as a way to placate God. Erroneous and/or anemic ideas about faith on the part of believers only serve to make faith seem unattractive to others, and thus to fuel unbelief.
The rising tide of unbelief should therefore prompt us to grapple with what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews says about faith & hope in today’s 2nd reading: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1-2). Or, as another translation puts it, “…faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And right about now, you might be thinking, “That’s nice, but what does it mean?” So let me see if I can be helpful.
Faith in Daily Life
Well, to begin with, “natural” faith is a part of daily experience. If you board an airplane, you believe the pilots know what they are doing. At work, you have to have a measure of faith in your colleagues. An essential part of falling in love and getting married is believing in your spouse.
We are always making prudential judgments about whom we should believe in. Sometimes we are disappointed, sometimes pleasantly surprised.
Moreover, the faith that is part of our daily lives isn’t a one-way street. Not only do we want to be able to believe in those around us, we want them to be able to believe in us. In other words, we want our relationships to be on the solid ground of mutual trust, whether it is a family, a work crew, or a sports team.
And let me add this: Not even the persons we trust the most encompass the entirety of our lives – not a venerable mentor, not our best friend, not even one’s spouse. There remains a part of us that is looking for more, indeed, searching for Someone, for Someone who can help us put together the disparate pieces of our life… Someone to give our life a coherence, meaning, and joy that we can share with others, whether as part of a family, or as a member of a team, or as a member of a church.
The “Definition” of Faith in Hebrews Re-Visited
Maybe this sheds a light on what the Letter to the Hebrews is saying to us about faith. First it says that faith is assurance of things hoped for, then it says that faith is evidence for or conviction about things not seen.” The words “assurance” as well as “conviction” and “evidence” convey two things: First, faith is not unreasonable but intelligible. It registers in both the mind and the heart. Second, faith involves trust – a trust that is firm and solid. But of what are assured? “Things hoped for”. About what do we have evidence and conviction? “Things unseen.” But the things we hope for, the things that are as yet unseen, are the very things that give our lives coherence, meaning, and joy – The hope of encountering God face to face in a state of happiness and peace, the hope of an infinitely deep and everlasting love, held in store for us in heaven. What’s more, this hope is based on ‘evidence’ we can experience here and now by faith: the words and deeds of Jesus, the signs he left behind, the testimony of the holy ones.
Just as in our daily lives, we place faith and trust in other people, so too religious faith is about believing in a personal God, a God who is trustworthy and loving, a God who is the author of our life and the source of all meaning, a God to whom we can entrust the whole of our lives. This is how Pope Francis describes faith: “The light of faith [he says] is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence,” and he adds, “Faith is an encounter with the living God, who calls us and who reveals his love, a love that precedes us and upon which we can lean for securing and for building our lives.”
Faith as Gift and Response
Our reading from Hebrews presents Abraham and Sarah as models of faith. They show us how to encounter God in faith and to build our lives on that encounter. When God called Abraham to journey to a foreign land, he listened and went. When, in spite of all odds, God promised Abraham and Sarah they would have a son, they trusted. Even when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Abraham was ready to obey.
Faith, like truth and reality, has its source in God; it is his gift, given us at Baptism. Only if it comes from God can it shed light on the whole of our existence. Yet it requires, on our part, an openness to listen, a willingness to risk, a readiness to obey … a desire to entrust ourselves to Another who loves us like no other. All that the Church believes and teaches – the articles of the Creed, its moral and social teaching, its sacramental life – all of these things are not abstract ideas and unconnected items demanding assent. Rather, they are like notes in a symphony that create harmony, meaning, and depth of feeling or like pieces in a mosaic that go together to form an image of immense beauty – all leading and guiding us towards a profoundly personal encounter with God.
Indeed, as Pope Benedict wrote: “Faith is a profoundly personal contact with God, that touches me in my inmost being and places me in front of the living God… in such a way that I can speak to him, love him, and enter into communion with him.” It is faith that gives our lives its direction, its shape, its meaning, its ultimate horizon. As we encounter the living and true God in this Holy Eucharist, let us ask for the grace to listen, to risk, to entrust, to act – in a word, to believe.