FAITH AND DOUBT

We are a people of faith. We are also a people filled with doubts about that faith. The doubter never expects to receive anything because the doubter doubts that anything he desires will be his. His life is one of negativity. The person of faith, on the other hand, expects his desires to be filled even though he knows that not all of them will be. His life is one of positivity.

There is a further difference. The doubter wants his will to be done but believes it will not be done because his faith is not what it should be. The person of faith wants God’s will to be done even as she prays that her will becomes God’s will and even as she knows that her faith is not all that it could be. The person of faith can live with her personal desires unfulfilled because she knows God knows what is best for her. The doubter lives with the belief that his desires will be unfulfilled because he doesn’t know if God really cares about him.

We all have doubts, of course. Such is the nature of faith. Faith is never knowledge and, thus, never certain. We may live in sure and certain hope but not in sure and certain faith. We are always growing in faith, little by little, each day. We certainly hope so, do we not?

That growth is usually imperceptible but it is real and can only be realized over time when looking back. I know my faith is stronger today than it was five years ago and maybe stronger than it was five days ago. But I can recognize the growth over five years but not over five days.

Yet, because of the nature of faith, certainly the nature of my faith, and, I suspect, yours, there is always that nagging doubt that hovers around the fringes. It kicks in often when we least except it, asking us if we truly believe what we say we believe, if we truly trust in this God whom we say we trust. It does not shake our faith; it simply gives it a little prick, but one that is felt.

When we think about it, doubt is good, is a good. It reminds us that even if we have a very strong, a sure and certain faith, we cannot take it for granted. We must always examine it, try to understand it, grow in it. When those trials of any kind arise, we know we should rejoice because they are an occasion to put our faith to the test, to put it to work. When we have passed through the fire, singed perhaps, but still safe, we can look back and see how our faith got us through and how it grew in the process.

That is not to say that we look for occasions to be tried and tested. We are not that foolish. But we are wise enough to know that they will come our way, especially when we least expect them to. We need to be ready and wise at all times.

Even more importantly, we need to be thankful for that gift of faith and, even more, for the times that faith is put to the test because that faith gives us the confidence that knows God will see us through.

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THEM?"

At the end of John’s Gospel Jesus appeared to his disciples who had gathered in that upper room because they were afraid of what might happen to them as followers of Jesus. They believed that the Jewish authorities who had had Jesus executed would now come after them and demand the same punishment. So they locked the doors and waited to see what would happen next.

What happened next was that Jesus suddenly appeared in the room and wished them peace, peace of mind and peace of heart. Then, according to John, he told them he was sending them off to be his disciples just as God the Father had sent him. Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:21-23)

In other words, Jesus is giving his followers the power to forgive sins – his followers, those who believe in him, you and me. We can forgive the sins of those who have sinned against us. We don’t have to, of course, just as Jesus said. Sometimes we don’t. And sometimes, probably more often than not, even when we do forgive, it is not easy to do so. In fact, the only way we can forgive someone who has selfishly hurt us, sinned against us, is through the power and strength of the Holy Spirit.

That power and strength is always there to be accepted and utilized – or not. The choice is ours. We have that freedom. Over the years we have used it and we have rejected it. What I find telling about this ability to forgive or not forgive are Jesus’ words in another translation of the Bible, Eugene Peterson’s The Message. Thus, “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive, what are you going to do with them?”

That is the question, is it not: What are we going to do with all those sins that we refuse to forgive? Well, what we do do with them is hold onto them. We all have over the years, and I dare say we are all holding on to some of those past sins even today. We have not forgiven and are still not ready to forgive; and until we do forgive, we hold on to them. They weigh us down and hold us back. They are a burden and they become more and more of a burden the longer we hold on to them.

It is not easy to forgive someone who has deliberately hurt us, for all sins are deliberate. The other knew what s/he was doing when s/he said or did whatever it was to hurt us in whatever way we were hurt. For us to forgive that deliberate hurt is very, very difficult. The greater the hurt, the greater the difficulty in forgiving. It can’t be done unless we want to forgive and unless we allow the strength of the Holy Spirit fill us with the ability to do so.

The choice is always ours: we can hold on to the sins others have committed against us or we can unburden ourselves, forgive and move on with our lives, freed from the heavy load those sins truly are. The heavier the load, the more difficult life is. The lighter the load, the easier it becomes. What are we doing with those sins?

VESSELS OF CLAY

Back in the dark Ages when I was in seminary (1957-1969: high school, college and theology), every day from 12:00 noon to12:15 there was a time set aside for what was called “Spiritual Reading”. If our Spiritual Director did not have a meditation for us to ponder before lunch, one of the students read from a spiritual book that was to give us some food for thought.

The only book I can remember anything about from all those years was one that was read when I was in high school. It was written by a priest, Leo Trese, and was called Vessels of Clay. The point of the book was that even though priests were, by their vocation, to be role models for the people they were called to serve and even though this was a tremendous responsibility, anyone aspiring to become a priest needed to be reminded that he (always and only he back then and still now in the RC Church) was still a very fallible and fragile person – a vessel of clay.

Over the years I have come to realize just how true that is. Clay vessels are easily cracked and even broken into pieces. They are not like bronze vases that can be slightly dinged and then re-polished or hammered back into their original shapes. They are not almost unbreakable and even everlasting like those made of metal. All earthen vessels, all vessels of clay must be handled with care and sometime even with kid gloves.

Trese was trying to remind his readers, and especially us young seminarians, that as great a vocation as everyone said we were called to fulfill in being a priest was, that was no guarantee that fulfilling it would be easy and that simply because we were priests we would be automatically holy people and inspiring leaders to the various flocks we were called to lead and serve.

Over the years I have learned from experience that it has not been easy and that I have not always, if ever, been that holy and inspiring person. Every one of us, every priest and every lay person, we are all, each and every one of us, a vessel of clay. The older we get, the more nicks and cracks. Some of us, perhaps many of us, have been broken and then pieced back together almost as good as new, but not quite.

The fact that I am just like everyone else has given me some consolation even as I recognize my many failures and shortcomings. It should give all of us consolation. No one of us is perfect. We are all fragile human beings. We have all made our share of mistakes and committed our fair share of sins, maybe even more than our fair share. But with the help of others, with our own self-will and determination and with the grace of God, we have been pieced back together.

Trese’s book has been a constant reminder over the years, if only in the back of my mind, that it does not take much for the vessel to be cracked and even broken into pieces if I am not careful. But that is true for all of us no matter who we are, what our vocation or how old or young. The truth is that “Handle with Care” should be stamped on all our foreheads and into all our brains.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

For as long as I have been alive, or at least for as long as I can remember, and that is a very long time, Route 28 from New Kensington, where I grew up, to Pittsburgh has been under construction. It still is and probably always will be. No matter where we live, there are roads that are under construction. And while we bemoan the delays when travelling them, we are thankful that sooner or later the construction will be completed and our travels will be back to normal.

Roads under construction are part of life; but, then, too, so is life itself. Life is a process of construction, of building, repairing, fixing-up. Some would also say that life is also a process of destruction, especially as we grow older and the body wears out and no amount of transplanting and grafting and plastic surgery and Botoxing will stem the tide of disease, decay and, eventually, death.

Not only is our physical life constantly under some form of construction (destruction, for those of us who feel the pains and limitations of aging), but so is every other part of our life. No one of us comes out of the womb a mature human being – not physically, not mentally, not emotionally, not spiritually. Every part of our life is in constant flux, is constantly changing, as long as we have life and breath in us.

Sometimes, just knowing this truth, or at least in grudgingly acknowledging it, we find some peace of mind. As children there were times when we were angry because we could not do what our older siblings or acquaintances could do simply because they were older and bigger and stronger. But we were assured by our parents that someday we could and would and that knowledge allayed some of our anger and frustration.

Life is always, at any and every age, a work in process, a time of construction even as part of that construction is constriction, the lessening of our abilities to do what we were once able to do but now, because of our age, preventing us from doing so. And while our limitations and debilities constantly remind us that we are not getting any younger, we still have life and an abundant one at that.

Yet, even when we have or had or will have life in abundance, even in those years when we can (or could) go and go and go and never seem to tire, when questions about health never arise (or arouse), there is (or was) areas of growth, parts of our life still under construction. The older we get, the wiser we become even when our memory begins to fail us.

Even when the latest construction projects on Route 28 and the Turnpike are completed, both will still be under some form of construction forever. That’s the nature of anything material. Ever known a homeowner who was not repairing, upgrading something? The same is true for us human beings. We need to remember that truth whenever we reflect, for instance, on our spiritual lives. Most of us bemoan the truth that we are not as spiritual as we would like to be or know we can be. We have room for growth, for construction. Drive that road carefully, but drive.

 

A SIX-YEAR-OLD EIGHTY+-YEAR-OLD

It is often said that as people grow older and their memories fade and they spend more time talking about and remembering the past that they are entering their second childhood. Perhaps the real truth is that it is better to remember a sanitized version of the past where the “good old days” were really good because the bad has been forgotten than it is to think that the rest of one’s life may be filled with severe limitations on one’s ability to do much of anything except exist.

And yet there is much to be said about a second childhood. When I reflect on my own life, something that I do not do often enough, I do wish there was more of the six-year-old in this eighty+-year-old body and mind. No, I do not want to go back to those days nor do I want to have the body of someone much younger, say a twenty-year-old. I am as old as I am because I have been blessed with good health. And I am thankful, especially when I see some of my contemporaries needing bottles of pills to stay active and alive and whose bodily aches and pains prevent them from doing much of anything.

That being said, it is so easy as we grow older to take life for granted. One day follows the next and not much changes. We have seen and experienced so much that we tend to take most things in life for granted, both the good and the bad. “There is nothing new under the sun” seems to be our mantra and we’re sticking with it. Nothing seems to shock or surprise us anymore. And the older we get, shock and surprise becomes less and less.

That is why, the older we get, the more we need to be childlike. For me it not only would be good but it would also be wonderful to be a six-year-old-eighty+-year-old. Imagine what it would be like to be excited once again by all the simple things in life that one was experiencing for the first time: a rainbow, a birthday present, a drive to get an ice cream cone, winning a game of cards – all those things we take for granted and find so routine as we grow older.

None of this is to say that the life of us elders is dull and boring even if there are limitations on how much of this life we can enjoy because we are not six years old. It is to say that, no matter what our age, we need not lose that joy of life that six-year-olds see as what life is supposed to be all about anyway. Yes, they will be disabused of all of this as they grow older and take on more responsibilities and as their bodies and minds age and betray them.

So what? So what is wrong in finding the little pleasures in life and making them out to be more than they really are?  What is wrong with waking up every day looking for the small surprises that will come our way, the little joys, the life-giving and not life-sapping events that make us look ahead to tomorrow for the next bit of wonder and awe, wonder and awe that have become routine but which should not?

There is that inner child in each and every one of us. Perhaps that is why Jesus routinely, I think, sat down and made his disciples sit down with little children. He reminded them and reminds us that we can learn much from children and from the child inside us.

TALENT

Martin Ritt was one of the great, but also according to many critics unsung, movie directors of all time. Ritt knew talent when he saw it and he knew how to use that talent to make great movies. He worked with stars like Laurence Harvey, Paul Newman, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson. He won acclaim for movies like The Great White Hope (earning Oscar nominations for James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander), Sounder, and Norma Rae (Oscar for Sally Field as Best Actress).

Ritt knew talent. What perhaps set him apart was his view of talent. He once observed, “I don’t have a lot of respect for talent. Talent is genetic. It’s what you do with it that counts.” And isn’t that the truth? Talent is indeed genetic. Every one of us who has ever dreamed of doing something we cannot understands that truth. We desire what we do not have but wish we did.

As is well-known by now, my greatest desire as a youngster was to play first base for the Pittsburgh Pirates. As is also known, I got cut from my Little League team because I was that bad. I had no talent to play baseball. In my head I was certain that I was good.   I also believed that if I just worked hard enough, practiced long enough, had that great desire to succeed, my dreams would come true. My Little League manager and subsequent failures in playing baseball taught me, begrudgingly, the truth.

Of course, some of my pals growing up were very talented baseball players and I envied them. None of them ever made it to the Major Leagues or even the Minors. But they did use their abilities, their talents, to take them as far as they could go playing baseball and then they moved on in life. Some of them, I suspect, like me, thought they had more talent than they did and, like me, had to learn the hard way: they got cut from the team.

We all have our special talents. They are genetic. They are God-given. It is useless to ask why we have the talents we do. We simply have them from birth through our genes. It is also useless to ask why we don’t have the talents we wish we had but simply do not. That is also the result of our genes and thus beyond our control. What is important and what, in the final analysis is the only thing that really matters, as Ritt observed, is what we do with those talents.

We know that, of course. We know people who don’t fulfill their potential, who don’t use their talents to the best of their abilities. Some of those people are you and I. As talented and gifted as we are, we still know that any talent has to be fostered. The greatest ball players, actors, teachers – you name it – became great not because they were the most talented but because they used whatever talents they had to the very best of their abilities.

Again, the talents that we have, each one of us, are indeed genetic but, most importantly for us as Christians, God-given. While we may wonder why we have the gifts we do and wonder why we don’t have the gifts we might like to have, in the end, what matters to God, what matters to others and what should matter to us as well, as Ritt has said, what really counts, is we do with those talents and gifts. How are you doing?

EASTER: IT’S NOT JUST HISTORY

There is an on-going debate, unfortunately, among fundamentalists and those who are not about not only the historicity of the Bible but also its factual truth. There are those who maintain, for instance, that Genesis’ six-days-of-creation story are actual fact when, in fact, the creation story is a profound parable whose meaning it would take volumes to explain. I have a volume or two on my bookshelf attempting to do just that. On the other hand it is easy, and simplistic, to say, as some bumper stickers do, that “The Bible says it. I believe it!” Good for them!

The Bible is filled with stated historical facts, many of them truly factual, many others embellished to emphasize a religious point. When we read Exodus, for instance, we are told that 600,000 people made the march from Egypt to the Promised Land over a period of forty years. The actual number is closer to 6,000, perhaps even 600. And did it take forty years when one could actually walk that distance perhaps in forty days? The point the biblical writer wanted to make is that God fulfilled his promise to save his people and, by God, God did – in an extravagant way at that, no matter how short a journey or how long it took.

And yet while the Bible is historical, it is much more than history. It is even much more than religious history. History, if it has any meaning at all other than a record of past events, must be relevant in the present as much as it was when the events remembered took place, if not more so. History is supposed to teach us something. We are to learn from it if only to not repeat the mistakes of the past. We ignore those lessons to our own pain, as history has also taught us.

Thus, in so many ways, the past, history, must be a present reality even if in a different manner and mode than what it was when it first took place. Easter, our remembrance and celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, was a one-time historical event. It happened on a certain date in history even if we do not know the exact date. Yes, there are those who claim it never happened, that Jesus was never raised from the dead. They have a perfect right to deny that the resurrection really happened, like those who deny people landed on the moon. To each his own.

But in truth it does not matter what non-believers believe about Easter. What matters is what you and I believe. More importantly, what matters even more is what we are doing about it, what our personal response is. Each of us needs to ask ourselves a simple question: “Does it really matter to me that on that first Easter Sunday that Jesus was raised from the dead?” And if it does, the next question I must ask is, “So what? What effect does it have on my daily life?”

Those are faith questions that are asked generically by this historical event. But they are answered only on a very, very personal basis. No one can answer those questions for me nor I for another. My response, as every response, will be unique even if those responses seem to be quite the same. But respond we must if we believe that what we celebrate on Easter is much more than an historical event, that, in fact, it is personal.