Faith and getting real

I THINK it’s high time that we start, if slowly, demolishing the myth, quite widespread, that pits faith with reason, and then later on, faith with reality. Like cancer, this myth has metastasized into countless varieties already. But unlike cancer, there’s always hope it can still be licked.

The other day, while talking with someone, I was again given the “get-real” treatment when I offered to pray over certain issues instead of recommending going to the streets making noise with placards and all that.

It seems to me that when you decide to pray first before you act, study the issues well, hear the other parties before going into rallies shouting dead slogans, etc., you are not getting real.

Or when you recommend prudence, patience, discretion, understanding, mercy, instead of rash action, you are not getting real. You are living in a different world. It would seem the consequences of faith are considered the antimatter of what is to get real.

I thought this kind of behavior has long been buried together with the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal man, but it looks like we have lots of it around yet. What is happening?

I think the problem is that faith in general is, bluntly said, booted out, given the sack, dismissed as a completely useless nuisance. What’s retained is pure reason, but reason simply dominated by the emotions and passions, a reason stuck with the externals.

It’s a reason held hostage by purely sociological or political or economic laws. The inputs of the transcendent nature of faith, precisely because of its spiritual and supernatural character, seem to be blocked.

There could be many reasons for this phenomenon. There’s vast doctrinal ignorance and confusion. Together with them, there’s laziness, complacency, if not lifestyles openly opposed to the development of spiritual life.

Many people don’t study their doctrine. If they do, they prefer to remain in the shores, never daring to go to the deep. They don’t know how to relate what they are doing with God, and vice-versa. There’s awkwardness and sheer incompetence in this area, and hardly anything is done to correct it.

Which is funny, because faith actually is what gives us the deepest knowledge of reality. It’s what God knows about himself and about ourselves which he likes to share with us. It’s his gift to us that serves as a foundation to our spiritual life.

It contains not only natural truths, those truths necessary for our salvation, but also supernatural truths that bring us deep into the very life and nature of God.

It’s a very dynamic source of knowledge, to which our mind and all our human faculties should try to pace with. This is what Pope Benedict when he was still Cardinal once said about faith:

“The adventure of Christian faith is ever new, and it is when we admit that God is capable of this that its immeasurable openness is unlocked for us.”

For this to happen, we have to understand that what is required is an appropriate response from us to this great gift. This is nothing less than to commit our whole selves in corresponding to faith.

Our intelligence, our will, our senses, our emotions, our memory and imagination, etc., have to be employed firstly to the requirements of our faith. Otherwise, these human faculties and powers can go astray as they would be improperly focused and engaged if God is not their first and ultimate object.

That is why we need to study our faith as contained in the Gospel, the tradition and teachings of the Church. We should try to assimilate them, knowing as well as we could the very life, words and deeds of Christ. The goal is to be able to think like God, with him and in him.

Then we need to train our will to continue longing for God and for others, always thinking of what one can do for them. This will set our attitudes and frame of mind in good order, and will launch us to an endless process of developing virtues.

We have to be wary of the many problems, difficulties and challenges involved in cultivating our life of faith. May it be that we can have a kind of thriving, growth industry dedicated to this business of our faith, with appropriate structures and practices so we can help one another in growing in faith.

We have to be firm in the belief that only in faith can we truly get real!