OUR FAITH, THE FAITH OF OUR CHILDREN.“STAND FIRM IN THE FAITH” (1 COR 16:13): FAITH AND EXISTENCE.

Man, a Being Originally Believing

Against the prevailing idea that faith is optional and subjective, or even that it stifles reason and freedom, we must consider that, on the contrary, man is essentially a believing being! It is natural to be entrusted, to entrust oneself, and to be trustworthy. It is good to have trust and to be trusting. It is reasonable to believe that reality is wrapped in mystery, and unreasonable to think otherwise: the laws of nature are minor compared to the laws of freedom and love - the things that matter most. Above all, we are made to love, and love, where we belong to one another and care for each other, is nourished essentially by trust.

It is more reasonable to trust in God than in men: men can lie and make mistakes - He cannot! And while people may be reliable here and there, only in God can we place a trust that illuminates our entire existence.

However, believing can be difficult -avoiding disbelief and suspicion, or gullibility and naivety - because believing means relying on the word and testimony of others. It means living without knowing or understanding everything, and it requires overcoming the naivety of relying solely on the immediacy of one’s own feelings and thoughts, and the illusion of finding security only in the evidence of facts and reasoning, in what can be touched and measured, seen and mastered. The most important things in life are not objects of measurement but of desire - not primarily of reason but of decision, not of calculation but of gift, not of control but of courage.

A couple of things must be clarified immediately: 1. We know through evidence and we know through testimony. Both forms of knowledge have equal dignity. In fact, knowledge through testimony (which involves experience and competence) is the most widespread: few things do we verify personally - almost everything is verified by others. Moreover, even things we know through evidence are based on testimony: others have opened to us the ability to think, speak, calculate; others have given us the keys to interpret events, texts, history, the arts… Of course, both forms of knowledge have their challenges: the first depends on our personal intelligence, the second on the reliability of others. So two things are clear: it is normal to entrust oneself, and it is essential to discern whom to trust. 2. Even though for four centuries the idea has circulated that faith is opposed to reason (with serious damage to both: faith loses its rational foundation, and reason loses contact with mystery), a basic analysis of existence tells us that it is normal for humans to weave together verification and trust, evidence and testimony. Faith and reason - said John Paul II - “are the two wings” by which man can take flight toward knowledge. The proof is simple: the suspicious and the gullible are poor representations of humanity.

The Christian: One Who Believes in Christ

Christian faith is founded on a God who, in Jesus, has shown Himself to be entirely trustworthy: a good and merciful God, slow to anger and rich in love, a God who wants us healthy and saved, who does not condemn but absolves us, who desires to form a covenant of love with us - and for this, He gave the life of His Only Begotten Son, a God who is pure light.

In Christianity, faith is the organ of truth and freedom: Jesus did not ask for blind belief, but said “come and see,” “activate your freedom and intelligence.” Christian faith is not a leap into darkness, but a leap into light: it is not the opposite of reason and freedom, but reason and freedom enhanced by the encounter with Jesus, who is both the Logos (Greek for “word,” “reason”) and the Filius (Latin for “son,” linked to “freedom” as in “liberi” meaning “children”). Above all, faith is the organ of truth, because “no one has ever seen or known God, but He has revealed Himself. And He has revealed Himself through faith, which alone has been granted the vision of God” (Letter to Diognetus). In other words, no one can give themselves eternal life, no one can save themselves alone, and Jesus makes it clear: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live” (John 11:25). Faith opens our possibilities and opens them to the God of the impossible: faith recognizes that not everything is possible for man, but “nothing is impossible for God” (Luke 1:37).

Deepening with Benedict XVI

In the pagan world, hungry for light, the cult of the sun god, Sol Invictus, developed - invoked at sunrise. Even though the sun rose each day, it was clear that it could not shine its light on the entirety of human existence. The sun, in fact, does not illuminate all reality; its rays cannot reach the shadow of death, where the human eye closes to its light… “He who believes, sees” (Lumen Fidei 1).

Faith, then, would seem like an illusion of light that hinders our journey as free men toward tomorrow. In this process, faith came to be associated with darkness… Faith was then understood as a leap into the void made due to lack of light, driven by blind emotion; or as a subjective light, perhaps capable of warming the heart, offering private consolation, but not something that could be proposed to others as an objective and shared light to illuminate the path (Lumen Fidei 2.3).

Recalling the connection between faith and truth is more necessary than ever today, precisely because of the crisis of truth we are living in. In contemporary culture, truth is often accepted only in technological terms: what man can build and measure with his science is true - true because it works, and thus makes life more comfortable and efficient. This seems to be the only certain truth today, the only one shareable with others, the only one on which we can discuss and collaborate. On the other hand, there are the truths of the individual, which consist in being authentic before what one feels inside - valid only for the individual and not to be proposed to others as serving the common good. The great truth, the truth that explains the whole of personal and social life, is viewed with suspicion… What remains is only relativism, in which the question of truth itself - and ultimately the question of God - is no longer of interest (Lumen Fidei 25).

It is therefore urgent to recover the luminous character of faith, because when its flame goes out, all other lights lose their strength. The light of faith possesses a unique quality: it can illuminate the entire existence of man. For a light to be so powerful, it cannot come from ourselves—it must come from a more original source, ultimately from God. On one hand, it comes from the past—it is the light of a foundational memory, that of Jesus’ life, where His fully trustworthy love was revealed, capable of conquering death. At the same time, since Christ is risen and draws us beyond death, faith is light that comes from the future, opening before us vast horizons and leading us beyond our isolated “self” into the breadth of communion (Lumen Fidei 4).

Christian Faith: Adequate to Both God's Desire and Man's

Christian faith responds not only to God's desire but also to man's, because it offers not just the firmness of truth but also the movement of love: the content of faith is precisely the truth of love.

Let us deepen this with Benedict XVI:

We can be helped by an expression of St. Paul, who says, “It is with the heart that one believes” (Romans 10:10). In the Bible, the heart is the center of the human being, where all dimensions intertwine: body and spirit; the inner life and openness to the world and others; intellect, will, and emotion. If the heart can hold these dimensions together, it is because it is the place where we open ourselves to truth and love and allow them to touch and transform us deeply. Faith transforms the whole person precisely because it opens to love. It is in this intertwining of faith and love that we understand the unique form of knowledge that faith offers - its power of conviction and its ability to illuminate our steps (Lumen Fidei 26).

To modern man, it seems that love has nothing to do with truth. Today, love is seen as an experience tied to fleeting emotions, no longer to truth. If love is disconnected from truth, it becomes subject to changing feelings and cannot withstand the test of time. True love, however, unifies all aspects of our person and becomes a new light toward a full and great life. Without truth, love cannot offer a solid bond. And if love needs truth, truth also needs love. Love and truth cannot be separated. Without love, truth becomes cold, impersonal, and oppressive to the concrete life of the person (Lumen Fidei 27).

On Your Word

Luke 5:1-11 is a model episode of faith, where faith is learned as casting the nets of life not based on our own views but on the word of Jesus.

One day, as Jesus stood by the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd pressed around Him to hear the word of God, He saw two boats moored at the shore. The fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Sitting down, He taught the crowds from the boat.

When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.”

Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But at Your word, I will let down the nets.”

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”

So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything, and followed Him.

He taught the crowds – Faith is a living and complex organism. It cannot be reduced to believing that God exists, perhaps only as a subjective conviction. It is founded on Jesus—on Jesus’ own faith, that is, His relationship with the Father, whom He knows personally in an eternal and historical way, as Son of God and Son of Man. It is also founded on what Jesus did: at the beginning of His public life, Jesus announces and inaugurates the Kingdom of God by healing, teaching and calling - not one without the other.

He got into Simon’s boat – Peter’s boat prefigures the Church: faith is always personal (Simon the fisherman) and always ecclesial (Peter the fisher of men).

Put out into deep water and let down the nets – Faith is sparked when we allow ourselves to be unsettled by our natural views and illuminated by Jesus’ supernatural vision.

At Your word I will let down the nets – Faith means giving reason to Jesus, trusting His word, opening to a truth that surpasses our reason and yet is not irrational: “faith is endowed with logos” (P.A. Sequeri). Faith enjoys a higher reasonableness because it is a reason open to mystery—specifically, the mystery of a God who is present and active.

The nets began to break… Go away from me – Faith opens us to the experience of God’s abundance and to the recognition of human frailty, becoming a cry for fullness and salvation.

You will fish for people… they left everything and followed Him – Faith demands conversion, discipleship, and mission.

Living by Faith, Educating in Faith

Is my faith in Jesus radical? Do I listen to His Word daily? Do I know how to trust, entrust, and confide?

Where is my faith wounded? Doubts, distrust, fears… a sharp separation in judgment between the things of God and the things of the world (secularism), or an excessive identification between the things of the world and the things of God (spiritualism)… suspicion toward the Church’s magisterium and unlimited trust in the words of some mystic…

Don Bosco gave us the Preventive System: Is my love both reasonable and religious? Is it marked by good sense and a sense of God?

In educating faith, there are at least four foundational tasks:

1. 1Help young people recognize and savor the reasonableness and freedom of faith, warning them against the temptation to discredit faith in the name of scientific objectivity or personal subjectivity. Faith says no to the slavery of rationalism and relativism, which claim that only what one thinks or feels is true.

2. Preserve and promote children’s symbolic capacity, which enables them to trace God’s presence in the things of the world, and rekindle in adolescents a sense of mystery—inviting them to keep open the question of God as a matter of life or death, of truth and justice.

3. 3Warn them against hastily discrediting the heritage of faith received in the family, and just as hastily accrediting ideas, models and objections subtly introduced by peers, teachers, and the media…

4. Guide them to give absolute trust to the Word of Jesus, which alone claims to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Word of God is living and effective - it is not merely informative but performative; it accomplishes what it declares!

Don Roberto Carelli, SDB