Weekly HOMILY for August 8, 2010:

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C
St. Patrick Church, Cumberland
August 8, 2010

That’s Real Faith
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


“Now that’s faith”

One day one of our Catholic Sisters was driving to the home of a person who was sick.

This Sister was a nurse and doing this home healthy visit on behalf of the hospital where she worked. She was driving through the streets of the town and lo and behold, her car ran out of gas.

Fortunately, there was a gas station just one block away. Unfortunately, the station had no gas can to lend the Sister and she did not have one either.

But then Sister got an idea. She had a brand new bedpan in the trunk of her car.

The gas station attendant knew her and trusted her and let her fill the bedpan with gasoline. Sister carefully carried it back to the car and started pouring the gasoline into the tank.

As she was doing this, a car slowed down to a stop and the driver was just staring at the Sister pouring from the bedpan into the gas tank. He called out through the passenger window, “Now that’s what I call real faith.”


Abraham’s Faith and Life

That theme of faith emerges for us today.

Our second reading extols the faith of Abraham. This ancient, Old Testament patriarch was probably illiterate, but he believed firmly in God.

God called him to leave the only land that he knew and journey to a foreign country. Abraham, because of his faith, did just that.

God promised Abraham that he and Sarah, in spite of being older, would have a son. Abraham, with his faith, rejoiced in the birth of Isaac.

God told Abraham that his “descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sands on the seashore.” Abraham had faith and so it happened.

Abraham basically had only one article of faith – he believed in God and trusted in God’s power. That one article of faith dominated his life and determined what he did.

We have many articles of faith – the basics contained in our Creed or Profession of Faith. Like Abraham, we are to allow them to dominate our lives and determine how we live.


Our Faith and Life

For example, to believe in a Creator is to believe in a livable universe that supports us rather than fights us. To believe in the Father is to know that God cares and that we have a home to go to.

To believe that God became human is to know that the unbridgeable chasm between God and us has been spanned. It is to know that God and we can walk life together and can actually love one another.

To believe that the Son of God suffered and died is to believe that absolutely nothing in life can overwhelm us. It is to believe that it has already been overcome by our Brother Jesus.

To believe that Jesus rose from the dead is to understand that nothing in life is futile. It is to know that everything we do has value and great potential for good.

To believe in the Holy Spirit is to understand that God lives within each of us and forms our deepest identity. To believe in the sacraments is to understand that God comes to us right now through ordinary things like bread and wine.

To believe in the church is to understand that God has formed us as a people, a family, a community. It is to know that we are to figure out a way to love one another regardless of religious or racial or ethnic or cultural or national differences.

To believe in the communion of saints is to understand that our community of life in the Lord is so strong that it continues even beyond physical death. And to believe in the forgiveness of sins is to understand that no mistake we make is fatal in God’s eyes and no hurt between us is so big that reconciliation is impossible.


Conclusion

They are our basic articles of faith.

We are to approach as Abraham did his one article of faith centuries ago. They can have a profound, positive impact on our lives if we allow them to do that.