THE CONTINUOUS SACRIFICE OF FAITH

SUNDAY, NINTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Wis 18:6-9; Ps 33:1,12,18-20,22; Heb 11:1-2,8-19; Lk 12:35-40

Faith Receives the Life of the Son

God is supernatural to our human nature and every created nature. But our nature, and every created nature, is related to the divine nature, for he made everything by his holy word. Hence, we have pointed out the sacramental aspect of every created thing. Each creature is related to God as the effect is related to the cause. Somewhat like the way a painting or a work of art is associated with the artist. But our human nature has more endowment than any other material creature because it is a rational creature. The scripture noted this by saying that God made us in his image, with an invitation to be like God. We say with an invitation because God made us in his image without us, but can only make us in his likeness with our cooperation. As images of God, we have rational souls. To be like God, we must receive and house the word of God. To be like God is to share the life of God; the sharing of the life of God is impossible without his word, which is spirit and life. The foregoing explains the necessity of the gift of faith from God. God gives the gift of faith liberally with the gift of his word. Since it was the will of God to make man in his likeness, he did not withhold the means, for the divine will is effective in all things. He gave man his word and the faith required to receive and rehabilitate his word. But each man would need to accept the gift and cooperate with God in faith.

From the beginning, the gifts of faith and the word of God are effective and determinative. Man either receives the gifts and lives like God or rejects and diminishes in the darkness of death. The passage from the book of Wisdom describes these two options as definitive of the people of God and their foes. “That night had been foretold to our ancestors, so that, once they saw what kind of oaths they had put their trust in, they would joyfully take courage. This was the expectation of your people, the saving of the virtuous and the ruin of their enemies; for by the same act with which you took vengeance on our foes, you made us glorious by calling us to you.” The acceptance of the word of God, in faith, makes us glorious at all times, for it brings us to share in the life of God. The rejection of the word of God makes a man an enemy of God, for he subsequently lives contrary to the divine will. Thus, God sent our first parents, Adam and Eve, away from the Garden of Eden, where they shared God’s life. Since the cause of their departure from life in God was their faithless rejection of his word, the path leading back to divine life is that of faith in God. Faith is a secret, interior, and continuous sacrifice to God, which the virtuous offer to God through his living word. “The devout children of worthy men offered sacrifice in secret, and this divine pact they struck with one accord: that the saints would share the same blessings and dangers alike; and forthwith they had begun to chant the hymns of the fathers.”

The hymns of the fathers, the devout souls sing together in an eternal covenant, is the life of God which the divine word makes available to them, while they are still living the mortal life. The Hebrew passage testifies that the blessing of immortal life is only possible by faith. “Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of the realities that at present remain unseen.” The unseen realities are the object of the secret sacrifices of the devout or faithful souls, because faith is a spiritual faculty through which we sacrifice mortal life for the reception of the immortal one. The sacrifice characterises their lives as pilgrims. “All these died in faith, before receiving any of the things that had been promised, but they saw them in the far distance and welcomed them, recognising that they were only strangers and nomads on earth.” Faith makes the realities of our blessings present, but spiritually and interiorly. Thus, our life of faith is one lived in anticipation of the fulfilment of our spiritual life with Christ.

The sacrifice that faith implies is the meaning of the transitional understanding of the Christian life, as our Lord himself instructed in the Gospel. “Sell your possessions and give alms. Get yourselves purses that do not wear out, treasure that will not fail you, in heaven where no thief can reach it and no moth destroy it.” We understand the continuity of the sacrifice in the following words: “See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit. Be like men waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks.” Our spiritual maturity requires the Spirit of Jesus Christ to be fully resident and in control within us. Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, is our heavenly home, for he is the Son who builds the House of God. The gradual transformation into him through the Holy Spirit is the meaning of the wedding feast that the master attended. Hidden in his mysteries, he works through the Holy Spirit to make us his members, until our union with him becomes perfect in mystical union. The Father will reveal the Son only when he has transformed us to be like him. “What sort of steward, then, is faithful and wise enough for the master to place him over his household to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? Happy that servant if his master’s arrival finds him at this employment. I tell you truly, he will place him over everything he owns.” Thus, the marriage is taking place within us daily through faith and the Holy Spirit. The feast will commence with a beatific vision. May our sacrifices be spiritual and continuous till the end.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.