20th Sunday after Pentecost 14.10.12 Faith
At present there is being launched a Year of Faith; also a programme of New Evangelisation; also there are commemorations of Vatican II, fifty years on.
All these events deal with the question of how the Church can better proclaim the Gospel to an unbelieving world.
People are lost and confused, there is no doubt; and Christ is the answer, also no doubt. But it is not easy to get the message across.
It is the Church that is commissioned to proclaim the Gospel yet many see the Church in its human limitations and focus on the messenger rather than the message. The message is Jesus Christ. He is the Good News; in fact the Best News.
To all our troubles, all our searching there is a conclusion. He is Christ the Lord. This day a Saviour has been born to us. Behold your King. There is the Lamb of God...
He is the answer to every question, the fulfilment of every need.
The Gospel today (healing of the nobleman’s son, John 4) brings out what He can do. He knows our needs and He can work miracles to set things right.
But do we believe in Him? The nobleman represents us in his various doubts.
First, he tries to tell Our Lord what He must do. Come and see my son. He says this twice.
He limits the power of Our Lord to work a miracle in any way He decides. Of course He can heal from a distance.
Then he does not really believe until he sees the evidence of the miracle.
How full of doubt we can be. Unless we see signs and wonders we will not believe, and even then, only until the novelty of the miracle has worn off.
If we really believed in Him we would not insist on a particular course of action He should take. Rather we leave it to Him to decide what is best. And we say, Thy will be done. And whatever Thy will is, let it be done to me.
Our faith is in Him rather than in any particular outcome of the prayer. This we find hard to grasp.
If we get what we want, we say, God is good. If we do not get what we want, we doubt God’s existence, or His level of interest in us.
No. If He is good He is good all the time regardless of outcomes to our prayers.
This is what it means to have faith in Him. We believe in Him as a Person. Whatever He does or does not do, that is fine with us because we believe in Him.
(Sometimes He challenged His disciples, such as at the Crucifixion; when He left them without clear explanation, expecting them to trust Him all the same.)
If we have faith in Him we can then have Faith, as defined and taught by the Church.
If all the members of the Church believed in Him in this way, believed to the point of absolute trust – then we would not have the contradictory witness we presently give. People would not be able to say, But you do not practise what you preach.
We ask Him now for the faith which leads to Faith, the full identification with His Church; and then for that Church to be able to convince the world where salvation is found – only in Jesus Christ.
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