THE FAITH GROWTH MANUAL

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 14th June, 2015

Eze 17: 22-24; 2 Cor 5: 6-10; Mk 4: 26-34

After a long while we have a Sunday that is typical of the Ordinary Time...and the Word today invites us to reflect on a theme that is central to our Christian Living: Faith! Infact, the readings together present to us a Faith Growth Manual.

The Faith Growth Manual invites us to change our style of thinking, judging and living, all based on the faith that we have. Faith is not merely a set of beliefs that we hold on to, but it is fundamentally a way of life, the way I live my life in relations to the One who has called me. 

Let us begin with this: 

How do we understand faith? Try a definition in your hearts for faith... 

A theologically sound definition should come somewhere close to this: Faith is my personal response to a Self-revealing God. God continues to reveal Godself to me in various ways, and this revelation comes to me continuously, eliciting from me a spontaneous and conscious response and that precisely is Faith. When I experience God as the almighty creator out there, I spontaneously am filled with an awe and I am inspired to surrender as a response. When I experience the presence of God in a moment of trial personally and feel delivered from it, I am moved to proclaim God as my Saviour. At times when I am directed in ways so marvelous, I thankfully acknowledge a God who dwells with me and moreover, within me! This is faith. Beliefs are merely expressions of this faith. Formulations like the Creed and the Act of Faith are nothing but ways in which the experience from a tradition is consolidated.

Faith, therefore, is a personal relationship with the One who is the cause of our very being. And this relationship has to grow; it has to gradually mature! 

First step is to understand that we walk by faith and not by sight. That is, we are convinced that something is right to do or not right to do, directed by our relationship with God. It is to say that we have God as our guiding principle, our compass, our route map! What is right at a moment to do can easily be defined: what God wants of me at that juncture.

Second step is to judge a situation from God's perspective,that is judging by faith. What is valuable and what is not; what is desirable and what is not; what is wholesome and what is not; it has to be decided from God's perspective. What my relationship with God permits to be good, is good for me. What my relationship with God deems improper, would remain far from my life. The ethical choices and my value system has to be determined by the relationship I have with my God. Which tree is big or high and which tree is small or low, depends on how God wants to have it!

Thirdly, when I begin to walk by faith and judge by faith, I can be confident I am living by faith! We will receive a recompense according to what we do: good or evil, reminds the second reading. What we do, will be determined by what we are. When we live by faith, our choices will show it. We need not pay any undue attention to gaining the mercy of God, or contriving to win God's favour. All that we need to do is live by faith, live with our relationship with God at the centre of our lives. That will automatically take care of every other aspect of my life.

A simple but demanding programme presented to us by the manual today: Walk by faith, judge by faith and live by faith!