What is Faith?

If you ever find yourself in J.F. Kennedy Airport waiting for a connection, and if your desire to spend some time with Our Lord leads you to ask for the nearest Catholic Church, you will be directed to what is known as the "TriFaith Chaplaincy". At least up to recently three religions, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish, have shared this one place of worship. For this reason it is referred to as a trifaith chaplaincy. Such an expression provokes a simple but very important question: What is faith?

Faith has been defined as "a religious conviction". One is sincerely convinced of a belief or set of beliefs. If this is so, we can speak of the faith of Jews, Protestants and Catholics. Undoubtedly each of these groups has a particular creed which expresses their belief in God. Protestants, for example, believe that there is one God. They further believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and hold that all salvation comes through Christ. However, on the whole, Protestants do not believe that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. They do not accept that the Consecrated Host is the True Body of Christ. We Catholics believe in God, and in Jesus His Son as our only Savior. But when it comes to the question of the Blessed Eucharist we differ from our Protestant brothers. We are convinced that the Sacred Host which we receive is the Body of Our Risen Lord.

Here we have two sets of beliefs. In part, at least, they are conflicting, they are contradictory. Now, no matter how sincere individual Protestants and Catholics may be, we must confess that both cannot be right. If one group maintains that the Host is the True Body of Jesus, and the other group that it is merely a symbol of His Body, one of these two must be in error. In other words, one of these sincere convictions is erroneous. No matter how sincere one's conviction is, it does not change the truth. If, in the eyes of God, the Host is merely a symbol of Christ's Body, no Catholic conviction cannot change that. If however, the Host is the True Body of the Incarnate Son of God, no Protestant conviction can alter this truth.

Undoubtedly we believe that, of these two opposing convictions, the one which states that Christ really gives us His Body to eat and His Blood to drink is the truth. Jesus Himself confirms this with His own words:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his Blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (Jn 6,53-54)

You will also remember that in our last Formation Letter we explained the vital role that the Pope plays in helping us to clearly interpret the meaning of Scripture. If Christ had not left us such a Guide on earth, we would certainly live in doubt and error. It is the Holy Father, together with the Bishops of the Church, who interprets the true meaning of the words of Christ.

We can therefore conclude that the set of beliefs which are found in the Catholic Church form the content of the True Christian Faith. This set of beliefs is often very simply referred to as "The Faith".

Let us now ask ourselves another question, a question which is common to both Catholics and non-Catholics: What is our motivation for believing? There exist many different Christian convictions and as we are seeing, these convictions often contradict each other. But is it possible that all sincere Christians have one common motive for believing? The answer might surprise you, and it should certainly make you very happy. YES, all sincere Christians have one simple motive for their beliefs. We are all firmly convinced that what God reveals is absolutely true. As "The All-Knowing" He cannot be deceived. As "The All-Loving" He cannot deceive us. It is He, the One Who is incapable of being deceived and incapable of deceiving, that guarantees the truthfulness of what He Himself reveals.

Let us imagine a man who has been an eye witness to an accident and who is perfectly honest. We accept his testimony as he saw what happened, and as he is known to be truthful. So it is with God. God constantly sees what He has revealed to us, He has "firsthand knowledge" of the facts, and as He is God we know He cannot deceive us. Here we have the motive for our faith. We believe as God reveals, and what God reveals is absolutely true. Without any doubt all sincere Christians, be they Catholic or not, share this in common: our religious convictions are based on God's Revelation. If God had not revealed them we would have nothing to believe.

We must now try to understand why there is not unanimity among all believers in Christ. Why are there contradictions in what so many sincere Christians profess to believe? Returning to our example we ask: why do some believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist while others deny this most central truth? We must answer that while all have received the same faith in Baptism, not all have had the same conditions to come to a full understanding of this faith.

Maybe now is the moment to give a more complete explanation of faith, to define what it really is. Faith is the capacity that we receive in baptism to believe in that which God reveals. It is a gift of God, a gift which enables us to believe in whatever God reveals. It is in virtue of faith that we believe in that set of doctrines which we refer to as "The True Christian Faith", and which is found in its fullest form in the Catholic Church.

However, it is not everyone who has the same conditions to understand the Revelation of God. If one is born into a family which does not accept that the Pope and the Bishops of the Church receive special graces from the Holy Spirit in order to help them to understand and explain Sacred Scripture, one is basically left to oneself. Alone, or maybe with the aid of a study group, one must grapple with the many difficult passages of this Sacred Book. Such a person can easily, very easily, fall into error. The true meaning of Scripture can escape him. It is possible that through no fault of his own he holds to an erroneous interpretation of Scripture.

This person can have the correct motive for believing but end up with a false conviction. He or she really desires to honor God by believing in all that He has revealed, but because of human limitations adheres to a false doctrine.

Let us state it very clearly: such a sincere Christian truly possesses the virtue of faith. He has not lost that gift that God bestowed on him in Baptism. But neither does he see the full beauty of the Christian Mystery. Maybe we could say that he is color blind. He can see the outline of the picture, but cannot see its full beauty. He believes in Jesus Christ as His only Savior, but does not yet see the richness of the Mystery of Salvation. He does not see that Christ, in Whom he believes, desires him to receive His Body and Blood in Holy Communion, and therefore he remains content with a symbol of the Lord's Body.

Without doubt many of our Jewish brothers also have a sincere desire to believe in all that God has revealed. They believe in the Old Testament precisely because all that is contained therein is revealed by God. And if they clearly saw that the New Testament was also revealed by their God they would believe.

Our daily experience tells us that there are many, very many, sincere searchers in the world. There are many people who are simply waiting to hear the fullness of truth presented in a way that is both intelligent and attractive. There are many non-Catholics who are waiting to hear the truth. The correct motivation already exists, they sincerely desire to believe in everything that God has revealed. What shall we do? Let us love our faith, let us love the gift we received in Baptism and which enables us to believe in all the truths that Our God has revealed to us in His Letter of Love, Sacred Scripture. Let us love each article of our faith, and let us try to share these truths with all the sons of God Our Father.

Act of Faith
O my God, I firmly believe that you are one God in three divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
I believe that your divine Son became man and died for our sins,
and that he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe these and all the truths which the holy Catholic Church teaches,
because you have revealed them, who can neither deceive or be deceived. Amen.