Reflections on Faith 2013
Companions of Honor Memorial Mass
Bishop Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
October 5, 2013
The Year of Faith has opened the door for us to revisit the place and role of faith in our personal lives. Life and the world have challenges enough to faith, sometimes quite disconcerting and unpleasant. But the Year of Faith also challenges us to look deeply into ourselves and our relationship with Jesus Christ. What makes the life of faith “tick” in our lives, what sustains it, and where do we encounter its vitality?
Prompted by the Gospels, I am reminded that faith is lived in the present. This is where we encounter God. I recall the insight of C. S. Lewis in his Screwtape Letters when he writes, “For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” Human beings dislike living in the present. They would much rather live in the past with its regrets or in the future with its fears. “The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays” (C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters). The devil takes advantage of this weakness of ours, this refusal to live in the present. Our Lord knowing this all too well teaches that fear is useless, what is needed is trust (Mark 5:36), and that God’s truth sets us free (John 8:32). Free of fear, free of regrets, free to live in the present. Wouldn’t this make us more fully human and God-like at the same time?
The dilemma of refusing to live in the present is exacerbated because human beings try to eliminate their fears and regrets by artificial means. By this, I mean, material things outside themselves—power, wealth, pleasure, and honor. It is no accident that St. Thomas Aquinas warns us that these are the four things that can replace God in our lives. Add to this already complicated situation the materialism of the world in which we live, along with its preoccupation with self, and we can have disaster. How is one to discipline his lust when pornography is as available as a click on a computer? How can parents be properly attentive to the needs of their children when consumed with pursuing money? How can an employee concentrate fully on his task when preoccupied with promotion? These are the questions the life of faith faces in the world.
At this point, we must recall the words of recognition spoken by St. John following the Resurrection. “It is the Lord” (John 21:7).
We must never forget “it is the Lord.” Lord is everything. We begin and end with Jesus Christ. He either is or He isn’t. C. S. Lewis pointed this out rather succinctly in Mere Christianity. “Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.”
Consider what the apostles must have thought after the crucifixion. None of the four Gospels hides from us the reality that the followers of Jesus were greatly disturbed by His death. The words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus sum up their thoughts. “[W]e were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). And then only to confound them more they have heard that the tomb is empty. “Some women from our group, however, have astonished us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive” (Luke 24:22-23). This news is just too good to be true.
This hopeful but cautious acknowledgment is what makes the recognition of the beloved disciple an even greater profession of faith. In the Gospel of St. John the apostles have already encountered the risen Christ twice in a room behind a locked door. Now seven of them go fishing on the Sea of Tiberias, and while at sea, Jesus appears to them on the shore, “… but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). The disciples have been fishing but have caught nothing. As He had done so often before, Jesus prompts them to cast the net out once again. At this point they catch so many fish that they find it difficult to pull the net into the boat. With this remarkable and characteristic sign, the beloved disciple proclaims, “It is the Lord” (John 21:7).
With these words, “It is the Lord,” St. John pulls us into the present. Jesus is there. He has done what He said He would do—rise from the dead. And our faith is based upon this great and wondrous present reality. Here we are present to a mystery, and we must never forget that. It remains a mystery but not a mystery that is remote and puzzling. Rather it is mystery that invites us into the presence of Jesus Christ.
I am struck by what happens in the Gospel of St. John at this third appearance to the disciples following the Resurrection. Once all the disciples realize that this person is in fact “the Lord,” the disciples remain silent. The Gospel expresses it this way, “And none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you/’ because they realized it was the Lord” (John 21:12). The disciples know it is the Lord. That is enough. No one must say anything else. They are content with the mystery.
There is much to challenge our faith in the modern world. Of course, every age has had its problems, but ours seem at times to be so great. Millions of babies killed by abortion each year, attempts to redefine primary institutions like marriage, indifference to suffering, the dangers of terrorist attacks, the slaughter of innocents, political unrest, religious persecution, mass murders—all of this burdens us beyond endurance. And this is not to mention the general loss of manners and civility, the corruption of public officials, the litigious nature of our society, the crassness and crudity of our so-called entertainment. There is much to lament. I tend to agree with the assessment of the modern world expressed by one of Evelyn Waugh’s fictional characters—this is a ghastly age. It would be easy for us to want to escape.
But it is God’s will that we live now. To want to live in some other age in the past would be an affront to His will. It was not God’s intent that we live at any other time. It is a mystery. All we can do is say, “It is the Lord.” The Lord is present in spite of it all. Many of the disciples were still living with the past. They knew the Lord had died on the cross. They knew He was buried in the tomb. What they had yet to grasp was that He had risen from the dead. They see the fish on the fire, and the Lord offers them the bread. As it was with them, so it is with us. In all the problems of the modern world, the Lord lives. He invites us to eat with Him. We have the Lord, and there is no need to ask any further questions. We encounter Him now in the present. “It is the Lord.”