Great is Your Faith

Jesus and the Canaanite Woman

 In the Gospel according to Matthew, an assertive mother from Canaan seeks out Jesus. She wants her daughter healed and she'll do whatever it takes. This Gentile woman begs Jesus to heal her demon-afflicted daughter. 

At first Jesus seems to treat this mother harshly. Then the mother utters a prayer: “Lord, help me.” Jesus replies: “Great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish.” And the daughter was healed. 

This faith-filled woman segues into the many heroes and heroines in Christianity who can coach us about our spiritual life. St. Augustine, whose feast day we celebrate this month, is one of these many heroes. After many detours in his life he met Ambrose, bishop of Milan, whose persuasive homilies led Augustine to focus on the direction of his life. 

Augustine went into his garden and just sat. He heard a voice say, “Take and read, take and read.” He picked up the Bible. His autobiography, Confessions, notes: “I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: ‘Put on the Lord Jesus Christ...' instantly... all the darkness of doubt vanished.” 

Augustine found his purpose in life. “God, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” That’s our purpose too:  be in relationship with God.

A question that haunted Augustine his entire life, even as he pursued a relationship with God was the problem of evil. How can I have a relationship with a supposedly all-good God when there's such incredible human suffering. The universe, the work of God, he came to believe, is essentially good. A provident God guides this universe to the fullness of the kingdom at the end time. The disciples of Jesus throughout the ages, the one Church, is holy, yet it’s made up of saints and sinners. 

Human beings need God's grace to live the kind of life God wants them to live. But some people choose evil over good, falsehood over truth. Why? Because there's a tendency or pull to choose our worse rather than our better selves. Augustine called this “original sin.” Human beings had fallen from grace and cry out for salvation.

Augustine praised an all-good God who became “one of us” in Jesus so that all who believe in hime might have eternal life. This Jesus Christ is alive by the power of the Spirit.  By God's grace, Augustine argued, humans are in relationship with God but still must struggle to choose right over wrong.

The quality of our life and our soul’s destiny ultimately will be measured by our character: going the extra mile; being faithful in our relationships and responsibilities; and trusting always in an all-good and compassionate God who is ever near and who will guide us safely to our heavenly dwelling place

Facing the Light

Christ Risen

The word of God takes us back to the wisdom literature of ancient Israel. The author speaks about a person who always tries to do the right thing. But how do some react? They want to murder him. “Let’s see whether God will rescue him,” they say.

This raises the eternal problem of evil. Why do bad things happen to good people? The word assures us God is close to us, even during the storms or assaults of life.

The author of the letter of James asks: why do some people choose evil? People indeed at times choose wrong over right, falsehood over truth. Christianity calls this human condition “original sin.” The fall from grace is described in the biblical Book of Genesis: man and woman hid from God.

Jesus, the Word made flesh, through his life-giving ministry and terrible death and glorious resurrection is our healer, our reconciler with God and one another. In baptism, we have become by grace what Jesus is by nature: sons and daughters of God, called to live a life worthy of that calling.

In the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus challenges us to serve one another even if it may cost us dearly.  Jesus predicts his own passion and death and resurrection. This mystery reveals our true destiny: in relationship with God forever in a new, indescribable, transformative life.

Jesus brings us face to face with his and our own death: a fact of life.

Today, some people may die in their 90s or 100s in hospitals or nursing homes or hospices, or alone. The best seller “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End,” by a surgeon, questions when to “let go,” when to stop offering medical treatments that likely don’t work. The doctor asks: why submit the dying to the full panoply of procedures only to see them completely lose their independence.

Many of us know Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages through which many patients and loved ones may pass:
-Denial: “No, not me.”  A typical response if one is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.
-Anger: “Why me?” God may be a target especially if one is young. But it's ok to be angry with God.
-Bargaining: “Yes me, but.” The patient accepts, but bargains for more time. I'll do this or that if you, God, lengthen my life.
-Depression: “Yes, me.” The person realizes he/she is not getting better. The person regrets things done or not done.
And finally,
- Acceptance: “My time is running out but it’s all right.”

These stages can apply as well to other major life changes.

Dr. Kubler-Ross also wrote “Death: the Final Stage of Growth.” The title leads us to the Christian understanding of death. The foundation is Good Friday/Easter.

The story of Jesus did not end in the tragedy of the cross but in the triumph of the Resurrection, God transformed Jesus into an indescribable heavenly reality. And God also will transform us into a new kind of spiritual embodiment.

Our faith challenges us to remember that the light of our resurrection will shatter the darkness of our own death.