‘RELIGION IS JUST A CRUTCH…’

It’s not uncommon for someone objecting to their partner going to church or attending Mass or say that those who do so are looking for a ‘crutch’ or that religion is a way of avoiding relationships.  It can be very painful to hear that said and can cause real difficulties for anyone who wants to grow in their faith and begins to sense that, to do so, they need the company of others. 

Like the Judaism from which it emerged, Christianity isn’t a solitary religion.  As with many other animals we’re designed to be relational beings – we live in societies; grow through relationships and discover who we are as we encounter others.  But like other religions Christianity goes further, it points out that in order to be fully human we need to be in relationship with something greater than ourselves – with God.  Our need to ‘go to church’ is an aspect of the realisation that, in order to grow, we desire to be with others as they seek God – is that a ‘crutch’?  If it is, then it’s one most of us need, for in order to be myself I need to be in relationship with you, or as one philosopher maintained ¹ – every ‘I’ needs a ‘Thou’ in order to find meaning.  We need to be in ever-deepening relationship.

Some use the church, the People of God, as a means of developing those meaningful relationships when, for good reasons, no other way seems possible and Christians are found to be welcoming, accepting and inclusive.  Sadly, a few look to certain churches to support their prejudices.  Some partners might feel ‘church’ is a threat to their relationship and there are, indeed, those who become too involved and distant from their partner.  But in a similar way, friendships, even hobbies, can either be nurturing of a relationship – we enjoy the company of friends and need to have our own independently of partners – or they can become an escape. 

I need a crutch

I don’t mind admitting that I need a crutch.  I know I’m broken, not whole – are any of us?  I know I need people to help me become the person I’m meant to be; need people who love me, people who will encourage and enable me to grow.   In so many ways life wounds all of us and we need those who will help us heal and become whole.  No one is perfect.  Many are prepared to accept that they are enslaved and need a rescuer – a saviour, a Power greater than themselves to whom they can turn for help in this matter of becoming whole and growing into the fullness of our potential.  Christianity says that we have a godly identity that needs nurturing so we can grow beyond the limits of the self.

In all this the individual seeker, wanting to grow in their faith, beginning to sense that they need to do so in company with others, will need to be sensitive to the feelings of their partner, making sure that they are giving enough ‘quality time’ to them.  For growth in relationship with the God we have not seen is tested by our relationship with those amongst whom we live (1 John 4.20f). 

Growing beyond the church

But this need to be part of the church is only one step along the way and we are not to get stuck.  The point of ‘church’ is not, in the end, to provide friends but to belong to a community of those on a journey into God.  The journey we’re called to make can be hard to undertake alone and we can cease exploring and settle down into a comfortable place and take the eye of our heart off the goal.  ‘Church’ is where we gather to encounter the mystery of God, the Body of Christ on earth – and in heaven.  To be baptised into that Body is to be one with saints and angels ‘standing around the throne of God’. 

Perhaps we might give attention to going to Mass rather than ‘going to church’ – going to that celebration in which we seek to be open to the activity of God in word, sacrament and through the body of believers both seen and unseen.  As with the first Christians, we’re called into relationship with God in Christ through attending the Eucharist – and then living out of that relationship and seeking to deepen it through our personal daily prayer, acts of loving kindness, listening to God’s constant call that our heart might reflect His – and deepening our love for those to whom we are committed.

Imprisoned but not alone

There will always be those who, for whatever reason, cannot ‘go to church’.  The housebound through sickness or age; those unable to feel they can ‘belong’; those denied the opportunity because of their circumstances or because they are forbidden.  And there will be those imprisoned.  Back in the 16^th century the great Carmelite mystic, S. John of the Cross ², was cast into a tiny prison cell by his brothers because they objected to the reforms he wanted to make to their Order.  He spent eight months in appalling conditions, yet this was the means for him to compose some of the greatest mystical poetry.  Instead of making him bitter and angry the very privations he experienced were the means for him to escape by way of love.  Drawing on the biblical Song of Songs his heart sang in the darkness as he sought the One he loved:

                          Upon a gloomy night,

                                    With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,

                                    (O venture of delight!)

                                    With nobody in sight

                                    I went abroad when all my house was hushed. ³

Even when denied the company of others, he found a way of reading the Divine Office and, in the darkness, meditating on the love of God so that his heart was open to the movement of the Spirit and he was united with his beloved.  Today we have Apps to help us! ⁴

We must pray for our partners, that they will also be open to God; show that our faith is deepening our love for them, and be prepared to explain that ‘going to church’ helps us develop our desire to be more fully human – more fully the person I am meant to be – and then pray that our hearts might be open to that Love which gives life to the world.

_________________________________________

¹  “That you need God more than anything, you know at all times in your heart. But don’t you know also that God needs you—in the fullness of his eternity, you? How would man exist if God did not need him, and how would you exist? You need God in order to be, and God needs you—for that which is the meaning of your life.”  (Martin Buber, I and Thou, Simon and Schustner, 2000)

²  A sketch of Christ, made by St John of the Cross, was shown to Salvador Dali in 1949 moving him to paint his great work Christ of St John of the Cross.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfN67C9XLCM

³    Roy Campbell, Poems of St John of the Cross, The Harvill Press Ltd., 1951

⁴ Pray as You Go; https://pray-as-you-go.org/; Laudate, Prayers, Daily Readings and Various Devotions: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/laudate-1-catholic-app/id499428207?mt=8

ADVENT SUNDAY 2008

INTRODUCTION
‘God is faithful. By him you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ the Lord’ (I Cor. 1:9)

“I couldn’t do the job you do!” said the electrician who was working in the Rectory last week. “After all, I don’t have any faith”. I decided not to point out that I couldn’t do his job either – I once had to call in an electrician to change a light bulb – but we did have a short conversation about faith.

So many people say something similar yet don’t reflect on the way life without faith is impossible. We need faith in others to enable relationships to flourish, and without those, where would we be?

For the next three weeks I want to reflect on subjects at the heart of Christianity – Faith, Forgiveness and Prayer. Firstly the question of Faith and how it affects the way we live.

Faith, belief and trust.
I think my electrician was getting confused between faith and belief. He probably meant that he didn’t believe in God and we could have had an interesting conversation about God and belief.

But I wanted him to finish his job! There are, of course, a number of concepts which are closely related to faith and belief – trust and hope, for example – and often these terms understandably become confused. In his classic book, ‘Stages of Faith’, James Fowler quotes the following lines: ‘Faith … is a quality of human living. At it’s best it has taken the form of serenity and courage and loyalty and service: a quiet confidence and joy which enable one to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in one’s own life, a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and is stable no matter what may happen … Men and women of this kind of faith face catastrophe and confusion, affluence and sorrow, unperturbed; face opportunity with conviction and drive, and face others with cheerful charity’ (W. C. Smith).

Now I guess many of us would like that kind of faith!

It has always been recognised that Faith is a gift for which we should pray. For example, the apostles said to Jesus, ‘Increase our faith!’ and he replies: ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you.’

So faith is something that needs to grow and develop within us. The trouble is that many grow up without the foundations which enable faith to develop. As children we need to have faith in our parents and such faith is rooted in a belief that the parent cares for the child and that they can trust what they say and do. If that is undermined, faith in them is weakened if not destroyed.

However, parents are not infallible. Some of what the child learns from them will be wrong, and some will be rejected. It’s normal for the child to trust the parent in the absence of other sources of information, but that doesn’t mean they should cling rigidly to everything they were originally taught in the face of contradictory evidence. Which is why adults and parents need the gift of wisdom to know how to respond to children’s developmental explorations.

GROWING IN FAITH
How, then, can we grow in faith? Well, firstly, we need to recognise the difference between belief, trust and faith.

Belief
To say one believes in something does not mean anything other than acknowledging its existence.

“I believe there is a train to London at 9 o’clock” can only be confirmed if the train arrives at 9 o’clock. Or to say, “I believe Persil washes whiter than Bold” means nothing until you try it out. Similarly, to say “I believe in God” means nothing until you begin to enter into a relationship with God and try to understand something of who God is. Then you need to act upon that understanding. Indeed, it has been rightly said that if you want your faith to grow, live as if you had faith!

Trust
Now I may believe Persil washes whiter than Bold but it’s only when I entrust my clothes to the washing process that I will know if it’s true.

I might have a profound belief in my parent’s authority, for example, but if I don’t trust them, that belief may be borne out of fear.

The American author Robert Kiyasaki once wrote of the way he came to understand that there are many people who believe in something, but it was before and during the life threatening missions he flew in Vietnam that he really came to understand trust. He explains it this way:

‘It's easy to believe in something and just do lip service to it. Lip service will only go so far when things become difficult and your belief is pushed to the limit. When we only believe in something it's easy to jump ship and go on to the next best thing to believe in.

Trust on the other hand is something that will go into the battle with you. When you truly trust in a Creator, your ability, your vision, the people you need to count on, then there comes with that trust a sense of peace in making the right choice.’

Faith
“Can I trust you?” is a fundamental relational question. Once we have sensed that we can then we can move on from trust to faith. Trust is, if you like, the bedrock on which a dynamic faith can be built, for faith enables action. I may believe that people don’t drown when they dive into a swimming pool and I may trust people who say I will float, but I need faith to make my own step into the water!

I may believe Persil washes whitest and trust what I am told about the product, but I need faith to place my best linen tablecloth in the wash!

Yet Faith isn’t a commodity we can get off the shelves. It is about the way we act, the devotion we nurture and the way we dedicate ourselves. And it will, at times, be full of emotion.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word used for faith is also used to describe the covenant of marriage, and what lies at the root of the relationship between husband and wife. As a gift of the Holy Spirit, faith needs nurturing if it is to grow, otherwise it will be like that gift buried in the ground we heard about in Jesus’ Parable of the Talents a couple of weeks ago.

In the Letter of St. James the author addresses this problem: ‘You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.’

So he argues that faith without action is a dead thing: ‘What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.’

CONCLUSION
“I wish I had faith like yours!” Well, if someone says that to you, ask them if they have ever prayed for the gift of faith and, if they have, whether they have then acted as if they had received the gift?

It isn’t a matter of having a ‘blind’ faith, an optimistic attitude to life or ignoring the problems and pains with which we are surrounded. It is rooted in a belief in a God who is faithful to us. As St. Paul said: ‘God is faithful. By him you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ the Lord’.

So it is as we seek to develop in that relationship with God that our faith grows. If our relationship with God is weak, then faith will suffer. And that in which we ultimately have faith will shape who we are becoming.

So for thousands of year’s men and women, in seeking to grow in faith, have turned their gaze upon God, believing that they are held in his loving gaze. And in so doing they have come into a new relationship with themselves and the world around them. Of all the books in the Bible that speak about Faith it is in the psalms that we find how people have realised this gift:

Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your judgments are like the great deep;
you save humans and animals alike, O LORD.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
… For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light. (Ps. 36)

Faith, together with Hope and Love, is one of the ‘Theological Virtues’ as taught by St. Paul. They are acquired virtues, to be sought by prayer, for they reside in God. There are many prayers seeking this gift, but one of the most beautiful was written by St. Francis. So l will leave you with his supplication:

Most High and glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of our hearts
and give us a true faith, a certain hope
and a perfect love.

Give us a sense of the divine
and knowledge of yourself,
so that we may do everything
in fulfilment of your holy will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Theology, Reason and Imagination

I've been reading Michael Paul Gallagher's (*) Dive Deeper, which he sub-titles, 'The Human Poetry of Faith'. In Chapter 9 he quotes from Cardinal Newman's, Grammar of Ascent:

'The heart is commonly reached, not through reason, but through the imagination'.

As a young man, Newman had had a long dispute with his brother, Charles, who had become an atheist. In a letter to Charles, he wrote: "you never entered into the spirit of Christianity (you are) not in a "state of mind to listen to arguments (you are) suffering from a fault of the heart not the intellect."

Gallagher goes on to observe:

'The majority of people around us who have abandoned regular contact with the Church have not done so because of some intellectual argument against faith. They have drifted away because their imagination was left untouched and their hopes unawoken by their experience of Church. They leave less in anger than in disappointment with hollow words that claim to speak of the holy. The crisis is on the level of the 'mediation' between a tradition of faith and a new cultural sensibuility. The language of the churches seems stuck in an older mode and unable to speak imaginativcely to the desires of now. People need to feel themselves part of a larger Story. Like the parables of Jesus, what is needed are traps for depth, moments of human poetry that give voice to the language of desire."

(* Michael Paul Gallagher is Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome. Dive Deeper pub. DLT 2001)