WE DRAW NEAR TO GOD BY FAITH

SATURDAY, TWENTY SECOND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Col 1:21-23; Ps 54:3-4,6,8; Lk 6:1-5

Drawing Near to God

There is no doubt that the apostles and disciples who lived physically with the Son of Man had special privilege. They did not just hear about the Good News he preached to all; they experienced his physical presence and had communion with him. They saw him with their eyes and heard the sound of his voice. Our Lord himself expressly stated the uniqueness of the privilege the Father granted to them by making them live with the Son of God in his human nature. He told them that the prophets and patriarchs longed to see and hear what they were seeing and hearing but never had the favour they were enjoying. However, the physical witness of the days of the Son of Man was not sufficient to grant salvation to anyone; those who received God's favour still needed to make an act of faith in the divinity of the Son of Man. The act of faith in his divinity was sufficient for our salvation. Hence, those who saw and heard without making the prerequisite act of faith in the divinity of the Son of Man and the salvific value of his death did not benefit from the unique experience granted them by God. Based on the sufficiency of our act of faith in Jesus Christ, he accorded more blessings to those who did not see but believed in the Father’s gift of his only Begotten Son to men.

Subsequently, faith brings us to the same inheritance as the apostles and early disciples of our Lord. We have explained and understood the possibility of this as due to the fact that faith is a gift of a new spiritual faculty through which we see and relate to spiritual realities. The gift of faith sets aside the hindrance of time and space, enabling us to access the presence of the Son of God in the sacrament of his humanity, which is now present in the mysteries of our salvation. Saint Paul affirms the efficacy of the gift of faith and the reality of the Sacraments as making present the mysteries of our Lord, when he witnessed to the membership of the Colossians in the family of God. “Not long ago, you were foreigners and enemies, in the way that you used to think and the evil things that you did; but now he has reconciled you, by his death and in that mortal body.” The fact of our presence in the household of God demonstrates the efficacy of the mysteries of our Lord. The chief of these mysteries is his sacrificial death on the cross, by which he redeemed and washed away our sins. Because he really did this, we are able to appear blameless before God. “Now you are able to appear before him holy, pure and blameless—as long as you persevere and stand firm on the solid base of faith.” These sacred realities are available to faith. To stop believing is to start drifting away from the holy and saving presence of God in the mysteries we celebrate.

Living by faith is learning to correct the contents of our senses with those of faith. The perceptions of our senses, put together in our memory and completed by our imaginations, are necessary for our lives here on earth, but they are not sufficient for our happiness and eternal salvation. But the witness of faith is sufficient for our happiness and eternal salvation. The scribes and Pharisees lacked faith in the Son of Man, so they were unable to have the complete picture of the reality before them. They only saw the apostles plucking and eating the ears of corn, but not the Messiah. The Lord pointed out what they failed to see when they complained. “Jesus answered them, ‘So you have not read what David did when he and his followers were hungry how he went into the house of God, took the loaves of offering and ate them and gave them to his followers, loaves which only the priests are allowed to eat?” They complained because they missed the essential or the most important component of what they perceived, the Son of Man. They failed to understand that the time of favour of the Lord is here and present now. Like the Pharisees, we become overly agitated when we fail to see things and situations with the eyes of faith. In those moments, we fail to perceive the presence of the Master ordering all things for our purification, education/illumination, and union with him. Consistency in faithless perceptions causes us to drift away from His presence and the hope of eternal salvation he promised us.

Let us pray: God of might, giver of every good gift, put into our hearts the love of your name, so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, you may nurture in us what is good and, by your watchful care, keep safe what you have nurtured. 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.