19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, C August 7, 2022
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
When Jesus comes back, what does he expect to find? What do we want him to find? If we want to be the servants who are “blessed,” we must be ready to open immediately. What does it take to be ready in this way? What can keep us vigilant? Faith. And what is faith?
According to our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, “faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” This is much more than simply agreeing with a set of ideas.
“The realization of what is hoped for.” That assumes there is something you hope for, something you are looking forward to but do not yet have. Unlike a nice home, a good job, lots of money, or just plain old fun, this kind of hope is for things we don’t find in this life, things we can’t get for ourselves. No, our hope is for Heaven, life with God, and perfect holiness; things beyond this world, yet made real in it.
That’s the point of calling faith a “realization” of them. They aren’t just distant ideas or goals, but made real through an inner sense of conviction, a way of life that proves it. Hebrews goes on to call faith “evidence of things not seen.” Faith is not saying “I think God is real.” It is knowing he’s real with the same conviction that you know gravity. How do you know gravity? Evidence. It’s so evident that we account for gravity in everything we do, in every step we take. Planes fly not by ignoring gravity, but by responding to it as if it is really there.
Gravity, however, is something we know by reason. We can also use our reason to know that there is a God, but faith goes further. It tells us who God is, what he wants from us, and what he’s going to do next. Where’s the evidence for this? Faith is the evidence. The supernatural virtue of faith is not just saying “I think it’s true,” it is the almost tangible conviction of a truth you can’t see. That’s why we call it a gift and a grace. It truly is beyond natural ways of knowing the truth.
Where does this virtue, this habit, this supernatural ability to know come from? Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis both speak describe it as something “born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love… transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see.”
It’s being in a dark room and trying to figure out what’s in there with you. If you’ve never seen a light and never used your eyes, you can still work out a lot of what’s going on. Touch, smell, even sound can help you form a picture. But when you turn on the light and see, you don’t lose your ability to use your other senses, you only add to them something that puts everything together. Looking at the room in the light, you can better understand how everything you already experienced fits together into a single whole.
So Faith is not a blind submission to myth, but the fruit of an encounter that establishes a trust in something more than our senses and rational arguments prove. It does so without taking away our reason. It is a light that illuminates reason… elevates it. Faith, rightly understood, is actually a higher form of knowing the truth. It doesn’t just affect religion, but equips our minds to see all truth more clearly. That’s why Hebrews describes it a realization and evidence.
Look to the examples of those gone before us. Abraham journeyed to the promised land on faith. It wasn’t a whim or vague suspicion. He went because he first encountered God who awakened in him this mysterious conviction. He learned to trust that conviction and follow it. Faith, real faith, includes obedience: trust in action. The reward wasn’t immediate. God promised Abraham a city and nation, but he spent his whole life as a nomad in a tent. Yet Abraham persevered in faith.
God built on that trust, promising him what seemed impossible to reason alone: a couple in their 70s having a child. Abraham trusted, sometimes imperfectly, and after more than 20 years, Isaac was born to his wife Sarah. Building still further, God asked of him a sacrifice. Abraham’s realization and evidence – his faith – illumined his decision beyond anything available to mere human reason: the same God who gave him a miraculous child was perfectly able to raise that same child from death. It wasn’t a gamble for Abraham. He knew he was about to sacrifice Isaac, yet he left the house saying to Sarah, “we will come back to you.” He knew Isaac would be with him after, though he did not know how. And he was right. So Isaac becomes the first prophecy, the first clear symbol of the greatest act of love in all of existence: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What does that mean for us? It means that we need to do the same thing as Abraham: encounter God, have faith in him, and become a symbol of his son. This is not quite the same thing as just going to Mass and sending the kids to catechism. Those things are necessary expressions of the faith, but they are rarely it’s source. To raise yourself up in faith, to raise up your children in faith requires this encounter, this mysterious spiritual conviction that undergirds the culture and practice.
Have you encountered God? He can and sometimes does break into our lives to make the encounter happen, but do you create time and space for that encounter? In allowing yourself to experience the wonders of creation, in experiencing inspired works of music and art, in reading scripture, going to adoration, engaging deeply with the Mass? Do you ask for faith? Is your faith a cultural left over or the fruit of a relationship with God? Faith is personal. It is a relationship of trust.
If you have that foundation, do you obey him? Abraham’s trust wasn’t real until he did as he was commanded. God came as Jesus Christ and gave authority to his Church. Do you obey him and his church? Are you like the servant, vigilant for the master’s return?
Does that vigilant perseverance hold true in the face of sacrifice? Giving up money, success, even close relationships when they conflict with your relationship to God, which must come first? It is not until Abraham is willing to lose Isaac that he gets him back as he’s meant to be – a sign of Christ, the Son of God. So it is not until we are willing to sacrifice our own lives in faith that we fully become what we already are: sons and daughters in the Son who died for us, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is coming back. Have faith in that. Be ready.