Our Response to God

ONE

The past few days we have been meditating on three profound truths at the beginning of the Catechism:

First, all people were created to share in God’s divine life as His adopted sons and daughters.

Second, just like we all thirst for water because we need water to live, all people have a built-in desire for God because we need God to reach the happiness we long for, even if that desire has been covered up by sin and confusion.

Third, God takes the initiative in this relationship. God became one of us so that we might know who He is and that we might know His love. This fact is captured in a powerful and beautiful expression at the Last Supper, immediately before Jesus willingly suffered and died and rose for us. Jesus looked into the eyes of his Apostles and said, “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I shall not call you servants anymore, because a servant does not know his master’s business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father.”

God became man in Jesus so that we might know Him.

Jesus invites us into an intimate friendship with himself.

He reveals all that we need to know to live this friendship.

All that is left is our response; our response to God is what we mean by Faith. The CCC says By his Revelation; "the invisible God, from the fullness of His love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company." The adequate response to this invitation is faith. CCC 142

TWO

There are three parts of faith:

First, faith is when you hold something to be true based on the testimony of God. God tells us something we couldn’t have known on our own and we make the decision to accept what God says as true.

Jesus is God and He has revealed everything we need to know about the most important questions of life; who is God, what is our relationship to God, what is the purpose of life, how should we live to find true happiness, why is there evil, what is the purpose of suffering, and what happens to us after death?

We find all that Jesus revealed in the Word of God which consists of Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. The Magisterium means the teaching of the Catholic Church. The best synthesis of the Word of God is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

We put our faith in Jesus because He is God. Only He could reveal the things of God. 

Faith is to believe all that Jesus taught and is handed down to us in the word of God. Faith is the virtue that enables us to add heavenly information to our knowledge. This knowledge is the most reliable, the most certain because God himself revealed it and this knowledge should radically change our lives. 

THREE

St. Paul describes the second part of faith as a total personal commitment to do and accept the will of God. Paul call’s this the obedience of Faith.

To reach union with God we must not only believe what Jesus said, we must also do it. We must put it into practice and live it. To conclude His greatest teaching Jesus said; “It is not those who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

It is not enough to simply accept the content of faith as true. I could know everything in the Catechism but if I did not live it, then I do not have faith. James 2:19; “You believe in the one God - that is good, but the demons have the same belief, and they are in Hell.”

Faith must transform your whole life. When someone claims to be a Christian, to believe in Jesus, but not change their life, they are living in denial. Many Christians are in denial. If I don’t do what Jesus taught, like developing a real friendship with him in prayer, admitting my sin and seeking forgiveness, changing the way I live,  forgiving my enemies, doing to others what I want them to do to me, accepting the will of God in all things…

If we accept what Jesus said, but don’t actively incorporate it into everything we do – well, that is a sign we live in denial, that our faith is dead. Faith only lives insofar as it changes our life.

FOUR

Jesus describes faith as an expectation that God will work wonders. It is this expectation that allows those wonders to occur.

In 1982, the Israeli Airforce carried out daily bombing raids on Beirut, Lebanon in its efforts to weaken Lebanon and gain more control of the Golan Heights. During these raids 36 disabled children had been abandoned in a hospital in West Beirut that was heavily damaged. Mother Teresa heard about this and flew from India to rescue the children. She met with a number of military officers and politicians and asked for a fleet of Red Cross trucks to go and pick up the children. The US Ambassador retorted; “This is impossible. We need a ceasefire first. And There is no chance it will come tomorrow….”

“Oh, but I have been praying to Our Lady,” Mother stated confidently. And I have asked her to let us have a cease-fire here ~ tomorrow.” The ambassador was taken aback. He stared incredulously at Mother Teresa and said, “Mother, I believe in prayer, but don’t you think that the time limit is little…well you know… short?” “Oh, no.” Mother Teresa responded: “I am certain that we will have the cease-fire tomorrow.” Trying in vain to conceal his skepticism, he placated her quietly. “Mother, if we have a cease-fire, I will personally make the arrangements to see that you go to West Beirut tomorrow.” Mother Teresa’s response was simply; “We shall pray.”

Then Mother Teresa went and pulled an all-nighter in prayer in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. To everyone’s surprise, except for Mother Teresa, a Ceasefire was declared the next morning at sunrise and you can watch for yourselves on YouTube the convoy of Red Cross trucks carrying those children to safety and a big smile on Mother Teresa’s face.

That is expectant faith.

FIVE

Our faith and trust in God are put to the test when we feel that our prayer has not been heard.

It’s funny that we never wonder if our praise or thanksgiving to God has been heard by Him. We know that it has.

However, we can become angry or despairing when God does not grant what we ask in prayer. This is particularly difficult when it involves the life and health of mind, body or soul of a loved one.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, three times Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father, asked that the cup of suffering be taken away.  “My Father,” he prayed, “if this cup cannot pass by without my drinking it, you will be done.”

The prayer of expectant faith trusts that God always hears, he always answers, and he always does what is best for everyone involved.

The world would not have been saved if the Father would have prevented Jesus from suffering and dying.

Pray like Mother Teresa, expecting God to do big things. But also pray like Jesus, seeking and accepting the will of the Father in all things.