THE CONVICTION OF FAITH
Those of us who have lost something, especially our health, or a loved one, struggle with that experience and are forced to make meaning of the new state we find ourselves in. We have to recalibrate our life with what is left while dealing with the pain and grief of loss. Perhaps we wish for a miracle to happen just like in our Gospel today, to change what we are facing back to what it was before the moment of loss. In short, we hope for a “do over”, another chance to fix things or do it better. And when we do not get that chance, it is a perfectly human reaction to blame God. Some have grown so disillusioned in their pain that they walk away because they feel that God does not answer their prayers.
St John of the Cross states that, “The virtuous soul that is alone and without a master is like a lone burning coal; it will grow colder rather than hotter.”[1] In our First Reading, Wisdom reminds us that God made man “in the image of his own nature”. If we believe that God is all good, all powerful, and all loving, it is erroneous to somehow conclude that God would want death and suffering for us. That would be a logical contradiction, for one cannot want both death and life and be consistent. If God is light and life, then cutting ourselves off from God is also separating ourselves from the life-giving vine. The woman who suffered from bleeding for twelve years understood this, that it was in connecting back to the vine – just a touch on his clothes, as she tells herself – she would be restored and have her life back.
How then are we to reconcile these then? On one hand, we see in the Gospels that Jesus restores Jairius’ daughter to life, and on the other hand, in our own lived experience we see that God seemingly does not answer our deepest and most heartfelt prayers. To help us here, Jesus’s direction here is instructive when he tells Jairus, “Do not be afraid; only have faith.” In the movie Evan Almighty, there is a scene where the waiter asks the wife of the protagonist, “Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous?”[2] We learn that we have faith only when our faith is tested[3]. In many testimonies we hear, a common thread by the sharer is when they realise that God’s response came in a way they did not expect so they did not recognise it at first.
St Ignatius of Loyola gives us a simple tool to help us to recognise the hand of God in the events that unfold in our daily lives. The Consciousness Examen (not an examination of conscience) is a prayer method where we review our day and learn how to see where God was present and active during the day. Our Archdiocese has a simple page that guides us through this process, which can be found at https://www.catholic.sg/the-daily-examen/. Through using this tool, we are able to cultivate gratitude and say “Thank you Lord”. The more we grow in gratitude, we can then join with the psalmist in his confident exhortation “I will praise you, Lord, you have rescued me.”
Today’s song helps us to reflect on this mystery. I pray that we may, with the help of the Holy Spirit, recognise how the opportunities to exercise our faith and experience that “joy that comes with dawn”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkzLQojR8Rg
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[1] The Sayings of Light and Love, No. 7, St John of the Cross. ICS Publications
[2] Shadyac, T. (Director). (2007). Evan Almighty [Film]. Spyglass Entertainment.
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 272.
Article by Daniel Tham, HFC Blog Contributor