Day 242: The Virtue of Faith (1812-1816)

• It’s Day 242!!!

• THE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES

• We are introducing the Theological Virtue of Faith

• Paragraph 1812 says, “The human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues, which adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine nature: for the theological virtues relate directly to God.”

• They are necessary to live the Christian life

• Paragraph 1810 (from yesterday) says, “Human virtues acquired by education, by deliberate acts and by a perseverance ever-renewed in repeated efforts are purified and elevated by divine grace. With God’s help, they forge character and give facility in the practice of the good. The virtuous man is happy to practice them.”

• The virtues are not a straitjacket

• They make us JOYFUL

• They make us FREE

• We need those cardinal virtues

• We also need the theological virtues

• Today we are talking about FAITH

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you glory, we give you praise. We thank you for bringing us here. I thank you, God, for every person who has been journeying these 242 days through the Catechism, desiring to know you and your will better, to know how to worship you, to know who you are in yourself and who you are with us. We ask you to continue to help us know how you are calling us to live. And, God, as we learn about the theological virtues, particularly faith, we ask that you please meet us with your grace, to gives us that gift of faith, and help us to live out the virtue of faith. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 1812 says, “The human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues, which adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine nature: for the theological virtues relate directly to God. They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have the One and Triune God for their origin, motive, and object.”

• To be a good human being, we need those four cardinal virtues

• PRUDENCE

• TEMPERANCE

• JUSTICE

• FORTITUDE

• BUT…

• To live in relationship with the Holy Trinity in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we need the virtues of FAITH, HOPE, and LOVE

• So where do the virtues of faith, hope, and love come from?

• THEY COME FROM GOD!!

• FAITH comes from God

• The ORIGIN of faith is God Himself

• The ORIGIN of hope is God Himself

• The ORIGIN of love is God Himself

• Why have faith?

• BECAUSE OF GOD!!

• Why have hope?

• BECAUSE OF GOD!!

• Why have love?

• BECAUSE OF GOD!!

• We have faith not because we believe things will get better

• WE HAVE FAITH BECAUSE OF GOD!!

• God is our MOTIVE

• God is our REASON

• God is our MOTIVATION

• When someone wants to get motivated, it’s not about getting all riled up and emotional

• To get motivated means you found a motive

• The motive for faith, hope, and love is God Himself

• So if we didn’t have God, why would we have faith?

• Is it just because we want to be a positive person and we don’t want to give up?

• Why would we have hope?

• Is it because we think they will get better than they are?

• Why would we love?

• What is our motive for this?

• BUT…

• If we have the Triune God we know we can have FAITH because He is trustworthy and faithful

• We know we can have HOPE because He has promised to be with us

• We can have LOVE because He is love

• The origin and motive of these virtues is God Himself

• So what does OBJECT mean?

• We don’t have faith in faith

• We don’t have faith in the culture

• WE HAVE FAITH IN GOD!!

• God is the OBJECT of our faith

• Sometimes we think that we hope for some kind of outcome or result

• Christian hope is not just a wish for an outcome

• Christian hope is hoping in God

• Regardless of the outcome and regardless of where this leads us, we are going to hope in Him

• We know He will be there and He will be faithful to His promises

• The object of our LOVE is God

• These theological virtues have God Himself as the MOTIVE and the OBJECT 

• Paragraph 1814 says, “Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself.” 

• This isn’t just a matter of “white knuckling it”

• We know the joy that comes from freedom

• Joy comes from having virtue that comes from choosing the Lord not only with our intellect and our will

• But also redirecting our passions so that they come under the guidance of our will and the guidance of our intellect

• BUT…

• There are many times when we encounter things that God has revealed about what He is calling us to do or not to do

• An example is contraception

• God prohibits the use of contraception

• Working against conception in the sexual act is prohibited by God and by His Church

• Someone can come to us and explain why and we can see the truth in the explanation 

• That’s good

• IN FACT…

• Listen to Fr. Mike’s story…

• The virtue of faith is deeper than this

• Do we need to turn off our brain in order to have the virtue of faith?

• If you have been paying attention for the past 242 days, the answer is NO

• That is NEVER the invitation by the Church

• At the same time, the virtue of faith isn’t just agreeing with someone who made a well-reasoned argument that convinced you

• That is not the same thing as faith

• The Church has well-reasoned arguments for everything the Church professes and believes to be revealed by God

• AND YET…

• Agreeing is not the same thing as faith

• We could have well-reasoned arguments for every article we will read over the next number of days in PILLAR 3: THE MORAL LIFE

• And we could find ourselves agreeing with the well-reasoned argument

• That would be good

• BUT…

• That would not be FAITH

• What is FAITH?

• Paragraph 1814 continues, “By faith ‘man freely commits his entire self to God.’ For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will. ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ Living by faith ‘works through charity.’”

• If you went through Bible in a Year, do you remember our friend, Job?

• Job heard about how good God is and he’s righteous and does all the right things

• Then the bottom drops out of Job’s life

• In the depths of his grief and suffering, Job wants an answer because he was a righteous man

• His friends tell him he must not have been righteous because of all that happened to him

• Job basically says, “God, just give me a well-reasoned argument and I’ll believe you, I’ll have faith. I’ll be able to lean into this moment and trust you.”

• And when God speaks, He does not give Job a well-reasoned argument

• God reveals Himself to Job

• Job makes a huge proclamation of faith, “I had heard of you before, but now I have seen you. And I put my hand over my mouth, and I will cease asking my questions.”

• Because we know that unless we have faith, there is always going to be the objection

• Unless we have faith, there is always going to be that skeptic that lives inside each one of us

• Even if we have faith, there might be that skeptic that lives inside of us

• BUT…

• When we have encountered the living God and we hear that He has revealed this…

• Even if we have a question about it, our question is not the question of a cynic or a skeptic

• Our question is one of wanting to understand

• Theology is faith seeking understanding

• It’s not wanting God to prove it to us and THEN we will have faith

• It is…

• OK, GOD I TRUST YOU

• Paragraph 1814 continues, “By faith ‘man freely commits his entire self to God.’ For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will. ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ Living by faith ‘works through charity.’”

• In so many ways, faith is OK, GOD I TRUST YOU

• I might still struggle to know why about a teaching or what a teaching is or how do I live this teaching

• BUT…

• I struggle as someone who TRUSTS GOD

• If you can present a well-reasoned argument after I struggle and after I am trusting God, then amazing

• If you give me a well-reasoned argument before I have faith in God and trust God, that’s great and helpful

• That could be a step on the way to faith

• BUT…

• Faith is not only a virtue

• FAITH IS A GIFT!!

• Paragraph 1815 says, “The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it. But ‘faith apart from works is dead’: when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.”

• We can have faith as mere belief in God

• BUT…

• If we don’t walk in hope and live in love…

• Salvation is being saved by grace THROUGH faith WORKING ITSELF OUT in love

• We can’t merely believe with our intellect and think that we are done

• We need to have FAITH

• We need to have HOPE

• We need to have LOVE

• Paragraph 1816 says, “The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it: ‘All however must be prepared to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the Cross, amidst the persecutions which the Church never lacks.’ Service of and witness to the faith are necessary for salvation: ‘So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.’”

• If we have the gift of faith, there is this aspect where we become missionaries

• If we have the virtue of faith, yes we keep the faith, we live on it, but we also profess it

• When was the last time we professed the faith?

• It could be the Nicene Creed at Sunday Mass

• BUT…

• When was the last time we professed faith WITH OUR LIVES?

• When was the last time you told someone you would pray for them and you actually prayed for them?

• In those moments, we have a choice

• It is a simple choice

• There is a hesitation in our own hearts

• We have the gift of faith

• We believe in God with everything we are

• We want to belong to Him with everything we are

• Why wouldn’t we just freely say, “Hey, congratulations on your big thing. I’m praying for you.”

• It’s so simple

• We don’t have to say, “I’m praying to the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

• We don’t have to say all that

• BUT…

• To simply profess it… 

• To confidently bear witness to it… 

• And to spread it…

• There are moments where we can be comfortable in spreading the faith in some contexts

• But in other contexts we have not bridged that gap yet

• And we think, “Wow, Lord, that is where you are calling me to bring up your name, to bring up your reality, your existence. To bring up even the fact that I pray on a regular basis. Like when I say, ‘And I’m going to go pray for you because I care about you.’”

• Hopefully this makes sense

• We need to not only keep the faith and live on it, but also to profess it

• What does that look like?

• It can look as simple as, “I’m praying FOR YOU.”

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!