A Living Faith

by Fr. Gabriel Terrill  |  10/26/2024  |  Weekly Reflection

Dear Friends,

“By itself, faith accomplishes nothing. For even the devils believe and shudder. No, faith must be joined to an active love of God which is expressed in good works.”
—St. Maximus the Confessor

These words from Saint Maximus may remind us of the reading from the letter of Saint James we heard a few Sundays ago when he said, “Faith apart from works is dead.” Saint Maximus even goes so far as to say that even the devils have a technical faith as they know who God is and believe in his power. We see this in the various episodes of exorcism in the gospels, where Jesus casts out evil spirits.

In Luke 4:41, for example, while Jesus is casting out demons, they identify him as the “Son of God,” but he rebukes them as he does not want to be revealed as the Messiah before his time. The demons are able to identify Jesus as the Messiah, but they do so out of fear. In a way, if we were to say that faith is just believing in Jesus, that he is the Messiah, then one might say that these demons have great faith. In light of this, there must be more to faith than just believing. We are invited by Christ to believe in him, yes, but he also calls us to follow him.

What both Saint Maximus and Saint James speak of is a living faith. However, it can be easy in the spiritual life to settle for a passive or “lazy” faith, a dead faith. A lazy faith is a faith that does not engage or cooperate with God’s grace, a faith that professes belief in word but does not live it out in action either in prayer or good works. Those who practice such a faith are commonly known as “lukewarm Catholics.” Lukewarm Catholics are those who are neither hot nor cold in their faith but only passively accept God’s invitation into relationship with him and the call of discipleship. They may say that they believe, but they never engage with their faith beyond identifying themselves as followers of Christ. As disciples, we are also called to action by sharing what we have received in faith and proclaiming the gospel in word and deed. We actually share the same commission as the Apostles, who were sent forth into the world by Jesus, as we hear in Acts of the Apostles:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.* And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
—Acts 1:19-20

Just like the apostles, we are commissioned to participate in the mission of the Church for the salvation of souls by serving God and others in our own unique call to holiness. We live this calling out, not as couch potatoes sitting on the sidelines, but by actively engaging in the life of the church; both in spiritual matters of prayer and in service to our neighbor. Pope Saint John Paul II summarizes this commission to actively live out the faith as the vocation we are all called to; the vocation of holiness. And what is this holiness? To be holy is simply to love God and to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40). Jesus gives these as the two most important commandments on which all other commandments hang. Therefore we do well to heed these commandments as the call to holiness and the recipe for a living faith.

I have personally been humbled to see this living faith at work in our parish, in the many ways our community prays with zeal and devotion, and seeks to serve each other within the parish and without. The devotions to the Blessed Sacrament and to our Lady humble and inspire me towards greater prayer, and the acts of kindness through the various ministries in the parish and the school challenge me to grow in charity towards my neighbor. I encourage us to reflect on the commission of faith and the Commandments of our Lord to love God and love our neighbor as we look for ways in which we can actively engage in our community and invite and inspire each other to a more vibrant, living faith.

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