The Risk of Faith

I am at a point in my life where I am not sure that I have searched the depths of my soul and inner longings as deeply and more carefully than I am at present. The period of Lent this year was not about giving up chocolates for me. Rather this past Lent was about giving up deep sin and selfishness within my own heart. Lent to me this year was about surrendering myself completely and fully to the will of God for my life. I attempted to do that as I prayed on Fridays for others and myself at S. Cuthbert's Shrine at Durham Cathedral and for the intentions sent to me by many of you. I took those prayers with me on my retreat/pilgrimage to Rome and left them at the tomb of S. Peter. I then went and knelt at the tomb of Pope John Paul II and prayed that God would give us all the grace seen in his life as successor of S. Peter that was particularly evident as we watched him fulfil his vows and which moved my own soul watching him live out his last days.

Faith is full of risks. Jesus calls us on all sorts of journeys. What I am coming to understand more deeply about my own faith and the Faith of the Church is that big movements take a lot of time. That is not necessarily comfortable for someone who is mechanically minded, sees the problem and is quick to find the solution so that the problem goes away as quickly as possible so that moving on to the next life-event takes place smoothly. Well, that is not the way God works. Faith is a risk because faith is a journey. Faith is about falling before the feet of Jesus and living a loving self-sacrificial life before Jesus and the world. It is not about presumptuousness or unbelief. The Christian life and service is not about leisure and retirement but keeping one's heart content and stayed on God. No fairly contemporary Christian knew more about the risk of faith than Cardinal Newman I would think. He was a man who seemed to be willing to live humbly and honestly before all. He was someone that I have come to appreciate for his own vulnerability before his friends seen within his letters and writings. He once wrote about the risk of faith that speaks deeply to my heart today. He says,

Our duty as Christians lies in making ventures for eternal life without the absolute certainty of success...Thus, indeed, is the very meaning of the word 'venture'; for that is a strange venture which has nothing in it of fear, risk, danger, anxiety, uncertainty. Yes, so it certainly is; and in this consists the excellence of nobleness of faith; this is the very reason why faith is singled out from other graces, and honoured as the especial means of our justification, because its presence implies that we have the heart to make a venture.

If, then, in faith be the essence of a Christian life, and if it be what I have now described, it follows that our duty lies in risking upon Christ's word what we have for what we have not; and doing so in a noble, generous way, not indeed rashly or lightly, still without knowing accurately what we are doing, not knowing either what we give up, nor again what we shall gain; uncertain about our reward, uncertain about our extent of sacrifice, in all respects leaning, waiting upon Him, trusting in Him to fulfil His promise, trusting in Him to enable us to fulfil our own vows, and so in all respects proceeding without carefulness or anxiety about the future.

This quotation is rich with application for all of us. I trust that all readers can benefit from the depth of risk that faith requires for each of us. May God catch us all as we venture out in faith in the journey towards eternal life!