2000 CONFESSIONS
December
November
October
September
July/August
June
May
April
March
February
January

Little Notes
Letters

Talk About Movies
Roamin' Catholic
Follow Me




Contents © 2000
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NOVEMBER 2000 CONFESSIONS

LOSS OF FAITH

There are two Gospel readings that, when I hear them read at Mass, break through the crust of familiarity and chill me to the bone. One is the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, in which the foolish, after buying oil and returning to the house, find the door shut. When they cry, 'Lord, Lord, open to us,' they receive the devastating reply, 'Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.' The other is the parable of the sower, in which the word is sown among different sorts of people. I struggle to avoid being like the soul in which the word is choked by the thorns of the world. But what really scares me is the possibility of being the soul that receives the word with joy, but has no root. I fear the loss of faith.

I have not suffered much, but I do not imagine that any particular personal suffering of mine would be sufficient to make me doubt God's existence, any more than it would make me doubt that water is wet. I do not tie up the existence of a loving God with the perceived quality of my own life, or even with the lives of everyone on earth. For me, God's existence has an objective character, one that is unruffled by the agonized "Why?" sent heavenward.

Further, I can daydream without a flinch about braving death for the sake of my Lord. The daydream that gets me, the one that comes unbidden and unwelcomed, involves a happy death at a ripe old age, or being hit by a car tomorrow -- unheroic death, death without the clear connection to God that martyrdom provides. Those are the daydreams that end with me wondering -- despite all my education and formation, all my blessings, all my years of churchgoing -- if the grave is the end, if darkness and the void are waiting, if this life is all there is. At these moments, I wonder if I have faith. I wonder if I have the root in me.

Augustine tells us that faith is a gift, for as Paul writes, "what have you that you do not have from the Lord?" If it is a gift, then it is not deserved, but gratuitously given. If it is not deserved, then it may be taken away without offending justice. My God. What if I lose my faith? And do I really still have it? Sometimes, in the middle of the Creed, as I repeat the well-worn words about Light from Light and True God from True God, I find myself asking, "Do you really believe all that? What an extraordinary list of statements!"

I think my faith has a strong intellectual infrastructure, but bizarre events seem to draw me away from intellect -- a TV special showing videos of supposed UFOs (hard to see aliens' place in salvation history: if they have reason, they share in the image of God. Did they fall? Were they saved? How?) Goofy stuff; why am I so troubled? Suddenly I forget the historical fact of Jesus Christ; the marvelous integrity of the Catholic account of the world and man's place in it; the events in my own life that so clearly manifest God's love for me. I find myself grasping at childish reassurances -- every time I pray to St. Anthony, I find whatever I was looking for. Every time I say the St. Thérèse prayer and ask her to "pick a rose for me from the Heavenly Garden," I receive a rose. Thank heaven for the communion of saints, but these considerations ought to flow from faith, not give it substance.

Most often, I get out of these little crises by turning to love. Love seems to me the great reality which argues against religion's being an intellectual construct -- the manifest reality of the love affair between the holy and their God. You can't love empty air as these people love. I think of the saints, of certain priests I have known, of my own mother. I think of the times when I have been overwhelmed by love, two in particular: once after visiting the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, and once after receiving the Eucharist at Midnight Mass on Christmas.

I suppose I am finally running up against the rather basic point that knowing a great deal about God is not knowing God, and that faith in Him is bound up with knowing Him, and woe to me if my faith is borrowed from the true faith of others. Because if I do not know Him, he will not know me, and the door will be shut.

Of course, prayer is the answer, and prayer is where I fail. Every Sunday I promise God that I will open each day of the coming week with time in prayer. I can't think of a single week where I've kept my promise. I don't feel like I'm wasting time when I pray, but often, I feel that my prayers too are borrowed things, unless they are simple petitions. There is no conversation. I do not hear. More is needed.

TOP