Year of Faith

POPE Benedict XVI has declared a Year of Faith that will start on October 12 this year, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, and will end on November 24 next year, the Solemnity of Christ the King.

This, to me, is a good initiative, quite needed at this time when the world seems to be dominated by purely temporal concerns in economics and politics. There is also that technological surge that like wine first excites people’s minds and then blunts and desensitizes them, especially to the spiritual and supernatural realities.

It’s worth noting that in a document issued to explain the plan, the Vatican said that “this year will be a propitious occasion for the faithful to understand more profoundly that the foundation of Christian faith is ‘the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.’”

This is a timely clarificatory note. Many times, faith is understood as a purely intellectual affair, pursued simply through the study of doctrine and an effort to translate that knowledge more or less into some effect in life. Lost is the main element of faith as a living experience with Christ who is God made man.

If not that, then faith is understood as one’s recourse to God at the instance of his particular need at the moment—to give thanks for some successful venture, or to beg for help, to express sorrow over something, etc.

And so one’s relation with God would not be abiding. He goes to God only when he feels the need. Faith would then be pretty much reduced to a matter of rationality or feeling, and made to conform to our terms of practicality or human need.

In short, with respect to faith, we can end up being actors only, who restrict our relation with God in some performances, and not God’s children who see God in everyone and in everything. And worse, we may just be users of God and not lovers.

Some words of the Holy Father recently addressed to seminarians are relevant to this need to study our faith. He said that “the study of theology must always have an intense connection with the life of prayer.

“It is important that the seminarian well understands that the object that he applies himself to is in fact a "Subject" who calls to him, that Lord who spoke to him, inviting him to spend his life in service to God and to his brothers.”

We, of course, need to study philosophy and theology to know God and love him better. In this regard, it is important that we continue to undertake catechesis and pursue a deeper knowledge of the doctrine of our faith, which is a living thing, not a dead word. This duty, for sure, never becomes obsolete.

We should be careful, however, not to be trapped in their intellectual aspect such that we fail to connect with God in spite of a seemingly growing knowledge of our faith. This ironic twist has happened many times before, and can continue to happen if we don’t take the necessary precautions.

Faith, of course, involves all our sciences but it is also a lot more. There is mystery involved in it always, and it is also something to be lived all the time. That is to say, that our very own consciousness should be infused with faith, and not just driven by some intellectual, psychological or emotional movement. Faith should be life itself.

A life of faith is a life of truths and mysteries. It is a life that always engenders hope, since faith does not stop in the doctrine that is taught, studied and known, but wants us to live it. The definitiveness of faith does not take away its openness to the continuing promptings of the Holy Spirit.

A life of faith is also a life of love and charity. It cannot prosper in any other environment. That is why, any growth in the knowledge of our faith should also yield greater love for God and for others that is expressed in deeds and not only in words and intentions. If this does not happen, then that faith is not authentic. It may have the shell, but it does not have the living substance.

This Year of Faith will hopefully bring in another spring time in the Church and in the world. For this to happen, let’s hope and pray that everyone contributes to make this Year of Faith fruitful.