Question for today’s feast: What am I doing to come to the light, to live in the light? How am I living the gift of faith?
The light of faith is lived in two ways, I believe: by the “acts of will” that constitute love or charity; and by acts of seeking and understanding that constitute the life of the mind. We must love what we seek and seek what we love. So easily said, so difficult to do.
There is something about Christian faith, or any religious belief, that it wants to remain asleep, to be mere belief without the ongoing scrutiny of self-examination, of repentance and return to the light, of seeking the truth of reality regardless of the cost to one personally. There is something about the human mind that it wants to grab what it glimpses, and abide in possession, rather than constantly move out of itself into the Other that we call God. There is something about the human heart that induces it to love the familiar and comfortable rather than to undergo the long, painful journey towards the real light.
Abraham, the primal biblical modal of faith, was called to leave homeland and family in his journey to God. The Magi leave what is familiar to seek Christ. What is needed is a radical, insecure, life-upending adventure of faith.
Epiphany in the churches is a chance to celebrate the gift of faith. But the danger here is that the gift is seen as something given and received and then possessed, and not as something that one must ever receive afresh. More to the point, faith is seen as a kind of knowing, when in reality it is an awareness that one does not know as one ought to know, especially regarding the truth of God. Faith that is real must ever be awake, alive, searching, journeying, letting go, faring forward. With hope and love, faith seeks God for God, also for one’s own benefit, and to have something worthy to give to others.
Faith that is not seeking is not faith. Love that is not desiring to give is not love.
The light of faith is lived in two ways, I believe: by the “acts of will” that constitute love or charity; and by acts of seeking and understanding that constitute the life of the mind. We must love what we seek and seek what we love. So easily said, so difficult to do.
There is something about Christian faith, or any religious belief, that it wants to remain asleep, to be mere belief without the ongoing scrutiny of self-examination, of repentance and return to the light, of seeking the truth of reality regardless of the cost to one personally. There is something about the human mind that it wants to grab what it glimpses, and abide in possession, rather than constantly move out of itself into the Other that we call God. There is something about the human heart that induces it to love the familiar and comfortable rather than to undergo the long, painful journey towards the real light.
Abraham, the primal biblical modal of faith, was called to leave homeland and family in his journey to God. The Magi leave what is familiar to seek Christ. What is needed is a radical, insecure, life-upending adventure of faith.
Epiphany in the churches is a chance to celebrate the gift of faith. But the danger here is that the gift is seen as something given and received and then possessed, and not as something that one must ever receive afresh. More to the point, faith is seen as a kind of knowing, when in reality it is an awareness that one does not know as one ought to know, especially regarding the truth of God. Faith that is real must ever be awake, alive, searching, journeying, letting go, faring forward. With hope and love, faith seeks God for God, also for one’s own benefit, and to have something worthy to give to others.
Faith that is not seeking is not faith. Love that is not desiring to give is not love.
