A reading of the holy gospel according to John. Jesus said to his disciples, when the paraclete comes, the spirit of truth who comes from the father and whom I myself will send from the father, he will bear witness on my behalf. You must bear witness as well for you have been with me from the very beginning. I have told you all of this to keep your faith from being shaken. Not only will they expel you from synagogues, a time will come when anyone who puts you to death will claim to be serving god.
And this they will do to you because they know neither the father nor me. But I have told you these things that when the hour comes, you remain you may remember my telling you about them. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. The re two readings today have one factor in common, and that's their reference to faith.
Now notice that sentence from the book of the acts of apostles. We are told that the lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul. Now that's just a tiny little sentence, but it brings out the main factors, the main ingredients of this mysterious phenomenon because it is a fact of faith. Now I'm not using the word faith here in the sense of trust and confidence, which is so widely used today. I'm using it in the sense of where a person has a strong conviction about something because of their motives of what we call credibility, that is reasons.
They appeal to the intellect. A reason by definition has to do with man's reason, with his intelligence, not with his feeling. There may be overtones in the feeling. So what we're talking about here is where a person says, Yes, I accept that, and I hold it to be true, I believe it, because so and so said it or because I read it. Overtones Now there's another item.
There's another factor that comes in in when you talk about faith as regards a phenomenon such as happened to Lydia, and it happens. Maybe not always as obvious and apparent and as spectacular as this, but there is another ingredient that we cannot overlook when you're talking about supernatural faith, the faith that saves, that turns a person who may have complete intellectual ascent as pneumonade and changes them into a loftier, a wider, and a profounder ascent. What is that ingredient? It's the action of God. We may call it the grace of God or any other word you want, but there is that extremely important ingredient.
Notice what the what Luke says, the lord opened her heart to give heed. Now it's very easy to overlook this fact. It's very, easy. You take a person well, Newman's as good an example as I know. Here's a man who was intellectually convinced intellectually convinced that the church of England had separated from the the the church during the reformation.
But it took him a long, long time, a torturous time, a time of cruel introspection and analysis and prayer to bring himself one day to admit submission to Rome. Now I use that word very carefully, submission. Because Newman, of all the so called conversions that we know, that I know, he stands out preeminently in this particular regard. Because the main issue, it's very well defined, it wasn't ambiguous, it wasn't unclear. The issue was where is the church of Jesus Christ?
Notice, Newman had no had no doubts about the truth of Jesus Christ. He had read the church fathers. He knew what Christ taught. He knew the early history of the church as few people at that time knew it, and few people know it now. The great issue was, where is that church today and is it in the Church of England?
That's the whole question. That was the whole issue. Now you have to understand this in nineteenth century Oxford movement, but the point is this, this is putting it I'm not oversimplifying it because at at Newman when the day came that Newman made his commitment, it was not a commitment to the Church of Christ. He had been there a long time. It was his commitment to Rome, which means the validity of of Anglican orders of which you hear so little today as if it didn't make much difference.
And so there is there are plenty of other instances. Hans Birfel is another one. Oh, he'll give any number of instances. That people have intellectual a sense, they accept the church, but they don't come in. As Keeble said, I'm like a church.
Keeble was a friend of Newman and and and a very active member of the Oxford Movement. And when somebody said, why don't you go why don't you become a Roman? He said, I'm like a church bell. I'm on the steeple. I call the people to church, but I don't go in myself.
How do you explain this? I don't know how you explain it. Yesterday, I read an excerpt from Flannery O'Connor where she asked her in a letter where she asked herself this question, where did I get my faith? That's a heck of a good question as regards Flannery O'Connor living down in Savannah, Georgia. Went to practically no Catholic schools.
The answer the only answer was she was the child of two very god fearing solidly Catholic parents, Ed O'Connor and Regina Cain. But she says it's a mystery, and it is. It's also a gift. It's also a gift. Keep that in do you do you ever thank god for your gift of faith?
You see, so many of us look upon it as a burden. To come back to Flannery O'Connor, somebody said, does it interfere with you as a writer to be a Catholic? She says, far from it. It helps me. How many of us, I I mean, honest to God, think that our faith helps to be better and happier, more joyful, more peaceful people.
How many of us really believe that? And if we do, how often do we thank god for having it? Let me give you one little tiny point on this. I don't believe in trying to prove faith by a pragmatic argument that it makes you feel better or makes you happier. Yet, I this is something to consider.
Carl Jung made this statement that in forty years, he's very specific because he was asked, Why aren't you a Catholic? And then he went on to try to explain it. Now in the course of that lecture or seminar, he says that in forty years of practicing psychiatry in mostly around Switzerland, he had had only six practicing Catholics. Now he emphasizes the word practicing, not merely men and women who were baptized. Only six.
And he makes a big point of that. Why? Why only six? In forty years, that's just a little over one year. And his answer is, It's because of their faith.
And he said, When a practicing Catholic comes to me, I send them back to their confessor. Now, of course, since all of us confessors have gone overboard and becomes to try to play the part of psychiatrists. That's not what Jung was saying. So our faith should be something that enlightens and brightens, that illuminates our daily living. I mean the nitty gritty daily living.
Individual decisions. Why do I do this rather than that? Because I'm a Catholic, not merely a Christian, a Catholic. You know, today we're trying to think those two word synonyms. They are not synonyms.
Moore put his head on a block because they were not synonyms. And so let us rejoice and be glad and enjoy our faith. There is not a single instance where you have a martyr going to the block who has who is not joyful. And this is no this is not just a manifestation of a masochistic disease, as some would try to put it. They had reason to do this.
Warren, his Utopia brings out the fact that the people who died in Utopia, believing in the in the hereafter and accepted death joyfully, they were honored as great heroes. Whereas those who ran scared from death, took them out and buried them in some old grave, forgot about them. That was utopia. And so so today, in this emphasis of faith that we have in both the readings, first of all, thank god for the faith that's in your heart. Let it illuminate your daily lives with joy.
That's the word for today. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.