Faith is the realization of what is hoped for
and evidence of things not seen.
Faith is the substance of things for which we hope. It is 'substance' in several ways, according to Aquinas. At a basic level faith causes us to merit so that we deserve to one day see the things we hope for and is their substance in this sense. Yet for Aquinas faith is not only about the future, instead "bringing it about that what is believed really to lie in the future, be somehow already possessed, provided one believe in God" (see Commentary on Hebrews paragraph 557). Finally there is a sense in which faith itself contains, in seminal form, the fullness of our hope, "the full vision of God [that] is the essence of our happiness" (ibid).
We see all of these aspects of faith at work in the life of Abraham. It was because of his faith and not because of his works that God promised to bless him and make of him a great nation, blessings which, expanded and clarified are still those in which we ourselves hope. His faith was always directed to his hope in God. But it brought those promises of God into the present, as it gave him the power to generate, giving him the son through him all of the future promises would be fulfilled. We see too that his faith already participated in the future fulfillment beyond what he could imagine that would be revealed finally in the resurrection of Christ.
He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead,
and he received Isaac back as a symbol.
By holding fast to faith Abraham was able to receive blessings which he could never have earned or deserved. He was able to realize these blessings in spite of their apparent impossibility on a natural level. And he was able to enter into the even greater ultimate fulfillment of God's plan for the world while only seeing at from a distance (see Hebrews 11:13). His faith was at present a dark mirror and not yet a face to face vision (see First Corinthians 13:12), but the object of that faith was one and the same Lord.
Abraham's faith sustained him through storms. When God called him to offer Isaac he must have been tempted to feel as though God had forgotten his promise to bless him through Isaac, that he had in some sense fallen asleep. But because Abraham did not turn back from his faith God himself quieted the storm and stopped the knife before harm could be done.
The disciples of Jesus in today's Gospel reading still needed more growth in faith.
They woke him and said to him,
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
He woke up,
rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!”
The wind ceased and there was great calm.
Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”
The problem was not that they tried to wake him. Rather it was the fact that they were terrified showed that they did not trust as much as Jesus wanted them to trust. He wanted them to be confident even when he was asleep so that when he slept in death for three days they could maintain their hope. Desiring him awake, desiring his resurrection was natural. But he needed them to understand that he was the one whom even the wind and sea obeyed, the one who would conquer even death itself.
Jesus was training his disciples to have faith that would merit to see him risen, not because they earned such a vision, but because of their trust in him. He wanted them to have faith that would help them to be so connected to himself that they could have peace during whatever storms they faced, already experiencing the power of the resurrection in their own lives.
that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead (see Philippians 3:10-11)
He was leading them to the faith by which they would see more and more the revelation of the vision of God, the vision which he himself revealed
The one who has seen me has seen the Father (see John 14:9).
Is our faith like the faith of Abraham? Or is it more like a list of data points to which we give our checkmark of assent. Let's ask God to make the fact that in our faith our object are things hoped for, the deepest desires of our hearts, more clear to us. Let us ask him to help us to walk somehow in the simultaneous reality of 'not yet' and 'already' that faith makes possible, so that we can have peace amidst the storms. And finally, let us ask him to help us to grow even now in our vision of the One in whom we hope, in whom our every desire is fulfilled.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.
No comments:
Post a Comment