Unless Your Faith is Firm

July 15, 2008

Memorial of St. Bonaventure, bishop and doctor of the church

Unless your faith is firm you shall not be firm! Isaiah 7:9

Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. Matthew 11:20

Piety

Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/071508.shtml

We are under attack…physically and spiritually. If Jesus were among us today, would his warning be even stronger than his reproach of his neighbors in Capernaum? If so, how do we avoid such a fate on the Day of Judgment?

The teachings of St. Bonaventure whom we celebrate today shows us one path. In his book The Journey to the Mind of God, we read:

Christ is the Way and the Door, “the mercy seat on the ark of the Lord” and the “mystery hidden through the ages. If you turn fully to that Mercy Seat and look at him on the Cross with faith, hope, love, devotion and wonder, praise and jubilation, you will “pass over” into his company. You will cross the Red Sea with the staff of the Cross, leave Egypt, and enter the desert where you will taste the “hidden manna” and lie with Christ in the tomb, outwardly dead but experiencing, as far as this time of pilgrimage allows, the words of the thief heard from Christ, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

If we “turn fully” to the Lord, St. Bonaventure goes on to describe how it means putting aside all intellect and turning all of our affections to God.

Sr. Mary Margaret Funk, OSB, has written two books that help us to identify what we have to put aside and what we have to take up. First, in her book Thoughts Matter, she details how we have to train our thoughts in order to strengthen our faith. Those thoughts that distract us from God involve 1) afflictions of the body [food, sex, and things]; 2) afflictions of the mind [anger and dejection]; and 3) afflictions of the soul [acedia, vainglory, and pride]. She contends that we “must practice redirecting any thoughts that remove and distance me from my experience of God.”

Which of these thoughts get in the way of your path to know God?

Meg Funk explains that St. John Cassian frequently used the image of a journey to describe spiritual life. Such a “journey” requires four renunciations.

First: Transform our ordinary human, external human journey into a spiritual one by following our Baptismal call to turn away from works of evil by imitating Christ and by renouncing any ways of life that lead away from the spiritual life.

Second: we notice our thoughts, not just our external actions, deeds or surroundings and decide to let go of attachment to any thoughts that controlled us in our former way of life. Once our thoughts are stilled and we have a mind “at peace,” we wake up and experience God’s presence.

Third: Through the practice of contemplation, we must let go of our thoughts, including our thoughts of God, and let God be God for us. In exchange for our fragile thoughts that come and go like clouds, we receive God who abides and unites us creatures with the whole of creation in a cosmic Christ consciousness.

Fourth: This requires us to renounce the thought of “self” or “I.” It requires us to lay down our very self and merge with Christ’s own consciousness of the Father through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Her second book, Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life, Meg Funk explains twenty-five practices that can assist in strengthening us and making our “faith firm.” One of these practices is the Jesus Prayer: Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Action

Use the “Jesus Prayer” today to ceaselessly prayer to deal with one of your thoughts that gets in the way of your spiritual life.