17 October 2019 - the principle of faith

Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets
whom your fathers killed.

Who are the heroes of faith that we celebrate, the saints and scholars upon whom we heap respect and celebrity? On the one hand, it is good to have models such as these. On the other hand if we don't let them teach us the way to holiness we are left as hypocrites. The saints and scholars can't love Scripture for us. Nor can they do works of charity for us. Loving Saint Theresa of Calcutta while remaining closed in heart to the poor means we are even harder of heart and more guilty than we would have been otherwise.

To be like these figures is more than mere imitation. It is more than just doing what they did as well or better than they did it. The saints and prophets and modern scholars all want to teach us one thing. They want to show us the principle of faith by which they lived. They were not like the old scholars of the law  in today's Gospel who could do nothing to help those trying to enter into holiness, relying as they did on their own strength and their own knowledge.

You have taken away the key of knowledge.
You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.

Genuinely holy people call us to turn away from ourselves and our own abilities and ideas and toward faith in Jesus Christ.

For we consider that a person is justified by faith
apart from works of the law.

When we are justified by faith we are forgiven of sins previous offenses. We agree with Jesus about what is wrong in our hearts and turn away from sin by the grace he gives. We are transformed into people who no longer need to kill prophets. We no longer compete with the prophets in order to achieve holiness and so there is no need for violence. Rather we and they both rely on the same faith.

Yes, also to Gentiles, for God is one
and will justify the circumcised on the basis of faith
and the uncircumcised through faith.

Let us turn from a mere passive celebration of our saints. Let us ask their prayers for the grace to live by the same faith that motivated their lives.

I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
My soul waits for the LORD
more than sentinels wait for the dawn.