Reflections by Raphael Gallagher: Faith matters

This year will see much analysis of the Catholic Church in Ireland. A new Papal Nuncio has just been appointed. The agenda for the Church will be set by how the outcome of the Roman visitation of the Church is formulated and presented. This will be interesting. With all the talk (gossip?) we risk paying little attention to the essential mission of the Church. This is about understanding faith - not in an abstract way, but in the age of the iPhone offering instant answers without asking what the Pope, bishop or priest say. Perhaps we have little time for faith-talk because it is easier to say what faith is not than to explain what faith is. I begin with the easier part. What faith is not. Faith is not a vague feeling that, somehow, everything will be alright in the end. 'When the fat lady sings' is a neat phrase to say when the opera is over. Faith is not an anxious waiting to see the outcome of life. It is more serious than that. Faith is not about having an opinion. There has to be some certainty in life. My view may be false or correct. My faith does not take the place of another person's thinking. Faith does not replace or destroy our ability to reason or argue. It throws a new light on life, if we accept it. Faith is not like a magic box with complete answers to everything. That would be reducing God to an answering machine. Press the right button on our iPhone and the answer comes back. That is not faith. It is the genius of human invention. What faith is. The beginning of faith is in our mind. A person with faith is content to say yes to God. On His terms. We use the phrase 'an act of faith'. This is not meant to imply a leap in the dark. Faith has to be the conscious decision of a thinking person. But there is more to faith than that. If faith is reduced to an intelligent decision, it would mean that the person who makes the best arguments is more faithful. Faith is about desiring to live in union with God. It starts as the decision of an intelligent person, but it goes further. We want to be in communion with God. Life is about using our mind and following our desires. One without the other is not enough. It is no different with faith. I believe because I have made a decision. Then I allow my deepest desires to be fulfilled by God coming to me. The difficulty of faith today The biggest difficulty about faith today is the emphasis we give to formulae and institutions. These have their importance. But this emphasis ignores an essential aspect of faith: it is a desire to live in communion with God's truth about life. And to do so intelligently. There are obvious reasons why people have lost faith in the institution of the Church. And when we recite the Creed, or give the new responses at Mass, we can say: that does not make much sense to me. It is not necessary to come to a conclusion that I have lost faith in God simply because the institution of the Church, or the formulae we use, could be questioned. I don't have to abandon searching for faith simply because of flawed institutions or wording. The importance of institutions and formulae is not that they are ends in themselves. They are means through God tries to communicate with us. Faith is a light that shines on us. The institution and the words are like windows. The more opaque they are, the less light shines through them. 2012 will be a year of debate about the Church in Ireland. Many things will change. Some will be happy, others not. I hope that the people making the decisions will be wise, and listen to all of us. It is not our opinions that count at the end of the day, but that we have a cleaner Church through which light for a more adult faith may shine.