PODCAST - Press sideways triangle below to
listen
Good Friday, ABC
Triduum Retreat at Retreat and
Conference Center at Bon Secours
March 25, 2016
Doubt: An Essential for Mature
Faith
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
Sr. Marianna
A sister
friend of mine, Sr. Marianna, once shared with me her story of an intense
struggle of faith. She had studied the religious life rigorously and had always
sought ways to make it more intense and keep it up-to-date.
Four years
ago, Sr. Marianna discovered that she had a rare, painful, and fatal disease. For
several years she suffered intense physical pain and discomfort. Eventually
everything she believed in collapsed into a deep, dark hole and she lost her
faith.
In all her
studies and training in spirituality, she never believed she could have such a
crisis.
In the days
that followed, Marianna was led to a place devoid of spirit, emptied of all
spiritual ambition and all satisfaction in what she had accomplished in her
life. In this space she found no guides, no hints at where to go next.
But it was
precisely in these depths she eventually discovered a new kind of faith, a
faith that rose directly out of her depressive thoughts and dark emotions.
Marianna was
shocked to feel faith stir in that deep, empty pit within her. With that
stirring she uncovered a new and profound sense of peace: she no longer craved
comfort from the hospital chaplain, from me, or anyone else.
This new
faith was so deep and different from the faith she had been cultivating in her
previous spiritual practices. There was more individuality in this faith; it
was tied close to her own identity and to her illness.
Not long
after she told me the story of her loss and rediscovery of faith, Sr. Marianna
died peacefully in the Lord.
Two Kinds of Faith
From her I
learned that there are two kinds of faith: one is faith up here in my head as
the holding of certain beliefs. It’s the faith we profess each Sunday in the
Nicene Creed, “I believe in God the
Father Almighty …” Let’s call it head faith.
In many ways
head faith is an easy faith; it centers in my rational and mental abilities and
gets expressed on my lips.
But I would
propose that there is a second kind of faith, a more mature, heartfelt faith.
This faith is borne in utter darkness, of the soil of inner struggle and
personal suffering, of going one-on-one against the very power of evil. We
might call it soul faith.
The
transition from head faith to soul faith is the journey that Marianna made in
her final months of life. It is the journey of faith Jesus makes, in working
through his own passion and dying.
It is the
journey that each of us will make one day; a journey some of us are already in.
it is the journey that is lived “de
profundis,” “from the depths,” as we used to say in Latin.
The Difference Between the Two
What is
different between the two is that in the second we admit to the shadow side of
our faith.
In it can be
found the believer and the disbeliever. What appear as weakness: questioning
thoughts, drifting from my commitments, and change in understanding what my faith
is, actually strengthen faith.
Both the Angel
of Belief and the Devil of Doubt in us play constructive roles in soul faith.
Notice that
in both Jesus and in Sr. Marianna, their experience of soul faith – complete
with the doubts, shadows, and dark side of the human condition – was present.
In Jesus it gets expressed with his use of the words of the 22nd
Psalm: “My God, why have you forsaken
me?”
Conclusion
What Jesus
and Sr. Marianna teach us is that the mystery of human suffering and death
cannot be comprehended with reason.
It is only
understood and embraced in the confronting of that inner darkness and living
out of that, with a confidant trust that God will see you through.
Suffering
then, forces our attention to the very depths of our souls where we normally
don’t like to go.
And here we
find ourselves on Good Friday, and of all the days of the liturgical year,
Jesus teaches us today that we have to arrive at that difficult point where we
don’t know what is going on or what we can do.
No comments:
Post a Comment