Always nourish the faith

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE are familiar with the story of the doubting Thomas who later on turned to be a fervently believing Thomas. (cfr. Jn 20,24-29) It’s a story that can only remind us of our duty to always nourish our faith to such an extent that Christ’s words to Thomas can also be applied to us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

We have to be wary of the danger of starving our faith by neglecting its abiding need for nourishment. Especially nowadays when we are bombarded with so many distracting elements that would lead us to ignore this responsibility, we need to make some special effort to truly nourish our faith by availing of the relevant means of ongoing formation.

We need to convince ourselves that giving priority to this need is all worthwhile. It does not at all undermine our other needs in life. In fact, giving priority to the nourishment of our faith would make sure that the attention we give to our other needs would be most proper and would be put on the right track.

For this we always are in need of constantly studying our faith, progressively translating what we learn from such study into appropriate attitudes, virtues, words and deeds to such an extent that whatever we do in life is always guided and inspired by our faith and not just by some sheer human wisdom and cleverness.

While faith is first of all a gift, and of the spiritual and supernatural kind that is given to us gratuitously, we have to realize that we also need to correspond to it. We just cannot and should not be casual about this duty to correspond properly to it. It’s a serious duty that once neglected can lead to disastrous consequences.

Especially to those who regard themselves quite gifted intellectually and in other aspects of human life, there is a need to be so humble as to always feel the need to be guided by faith first and always rather than simply by their human powers and other resources.

We have to follow the example of Our Lady whose faith was highly extolled once by her cousin Elizabeth who told her: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” (Lk 1,45)

That’s because when she was told by the Archangel Gabriel that she was going to be the mother of the Son of God, she first asked how it could happen since she knew not man. But when the heavenly messenger told her that the Holy Spirit would overshadow her and that she would conceive a son in her womb, she immediately said, “Be it done to me,” even if what she was told cannot be explained humanly.

We have to understand that with respect to our faith, we are not expected to understand everything. We, of course, should try to understand the truths of our faith, but we should always realize that with faith, we can be dealing with supernatural truths and mysteries that are beyond our human capacity to understand. 

We should just say, yes, to it not because we understand it, but rather because of the one who told it to us, the one who cannot lie. Faith always involves trust, just like in our ordinary daily affairs when we would just do things without asking so much why we need to do them. We simply do them because we trust in the ones who ask us to do them.