Faith Justice Charity
What
is Faith? Faith is, first of all, God’s
action on us. God gives himself to you. He has faith in you since he created
you with great hopes for your future. As Jesus says, “You did not choose me, I
chose you. I chose you because I believe in you, that you will go out and bear
fruit, fruit that will last.” One day, two thousand years ago, God chose a
maiden of marriageable age and addressed her as “Hail, favoured one. I have
chosen you because I see a great future, a great future that will arise from you
womb, and radiate to the whole world, and bring the whole world back to me, the
source of all good.” You remember how
Jesus once said: “When I am lifted up I shall draw all men and women to
myself.” When the faith of God entered
into Mary, that very faith empowered her to answer her great “Yes” with a
complete hope for the future. She would be faithful, strong and reliable. The
first among the disciples, she is the one whose discipleship never fails. She
is the woman who does not deny, does not betray nor leave her child and run
away.
Faith flows into Charity. “Faith without charity bears no fruit.”
Faith and Charity each require the other. Through faith we can recognise the
face of the Risen Lord in those who ask for our charity. “As you did it to the
least of my brethren, you did it to me.” We cannot see God, so we love our
neighbour. God has created all human beings, created them with equal humanity.
We are linked to one another by the common bond of creation. No one can claim
that he or she is more human than the other. However, some people behave
inhumanly; they need conversion. Many of us have tarnished our humanity by the
misuse of our faculties. That is known as sin. Poverty, suffering, bereavement
can affect our humanity, but not make us less human. There is also the very
pain of being human. This is due to our limitation of which we are acutely
aware. This produces fear, the fear of diminishment or extinction. The only way
to overcome this fear is to enter into dialogue and cooperation with fellow human
beings. But first we must recognise our common dependency on God: that is
faith. That’s the faith-link that must not be broken. Secondly, we must
recognise our dependency on fellow human beings. That is also faith. We need to
work together under God to build a healthy, happy and developing humanity.
Working under God – for “unless the Lord build the city, they labour in vain
who build it.” And we shall discover Jesus Christ in our midst: we shall
discover him feeding the multitude, reaching out to those ignored and shunned,
healing the sick and forgiving sins. Our dear God also wants a healthy, happy
and developing humanity.
In the midst of human
life God reaches out to us in the person of Jesus Christ. In Jesus God gives
himself fully and man gives himself to God fully. This is the supreme (albeit
very general) norm of the moral life. Jesus’ person, words and actions are our
guide. He is the standard by which our intents are judged. By recalling his
words, parables, life and death, we are conformed to do what we discern about
Jesus’ own attitudes and bearing towards others, and his intentions which were
shaped by his trust in God. His heart was set on his Father and his Kingdom. We
must keep in mind that Jesus is one of us, knowing our pains and joys and also
revealing our deepest possibilities. Jesus Christ fulfils what we recognise
within us as true human personhood. How does he do it?
Jesus Christ did not
exhaust the several potentialities of human nature, taken discretely. This
would have been impossible in one historical lifetime. For instance, he was not
a great painter or a philosopher or a statesman or a great husband, though we
must admit that he was a teacher par
excellence, combining in that activity a great amount of true art and
poetry. The point we want to make is that Jesus concentrated in himself all the power and energy that human
nature is capable of for activating any of the avocations that a man may
choose, and he concentrated it to a degree that no man could muster, a degree
so high as to make it fit to be used by God for something very great – the
salvation of the world! This power was the power of his self-giving love at the service of the Word. Thus, in preference
to all other possibilities, Jesus chose the essential and most distinctively
human potentiality of all, the one that has the most radical claim on all men:
self-surrendering love.
Jesus was a man who
tested life and was tested by it in turn, searching out life’s meaning by
listening carefully to what makes life really valuable; and he lived and died
trusting that life and death are not bad jokes. So also our discipleship is not
without moral problems. Since we are wounded by sin, our capacity for
commitment is limited. Yet the value of discipleship is that it inspires a
vision that provides a context for moral analysis and choice. Imitating Christ
is not a piece of mimicry, but a challenge to live out our human adventure as
authentically as he did.
We go from situation to situation in our Christian life. The virtues
of Faith, Hope and Charity link the situations in the unity of the Christian
spirit. Thus we say of a person that he does everything and deals with
everybody with love and faith. If our Christian spirit must be genuine and
realistic it must assume a particular form and expression. This form will be
determined by the need of the actual situation. The more virtuously this
situation is met the more fully we experience the Christian spirit. As an
example, we do not only feed and clothe neglected children, we also educate
them, and not only educate them but also evangelise them. And blessed are you
who work hand and hand with him, translating your faith into good works.
Blessed are you for you are marked out for Paradise the doors of which are
opening for you and all those you had helped in ever so small a way the smallest
child of God.
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