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Posted: October 12th, 2007 at 12:31am By: Kevin Considine
In a song I like, Bruce Springsteen sings: "Struck me kinda funny, seems kinda funny sir to me/How at the end of every hard-earned day people find some reason to believe."
I think we all have those days. You know, the days where we think our faith is a little strange. Those days when we hold onto belief but aren't exactly sure why.
Trust me. I understand.
After all, I live in Chicago. My adopted city is known for its hard-nosed realism. After all, we here are mired down in dealing with real problems like neighborhood violence, joblessness and homelessness, institutional racism and sexism and illegal immigration along with gentrification, family breakdown, idolizing material goods and pushing the poor and middle class out of the city.
That's not to mention other irritations such as a problematic Chicago Marathon, a public transportation system that continues issuing monthly "doomsday" scenarios and a police department that is dealing with abuses of power. And that's not to mention just trying to make a living each day.
So Springsteen is right. It is funny that at the end of every hard-earned day we still find a reason to believe. After all, why should we believe, when so much around us points to God's absence? Besides, who even has time to find a reason to believe?
I guess there are two things that come to mind. And they both deal with what we've come to know as "faith." First, let me clear something up. Faith isn't a secret knowledge that we attain when we get on God's good side. Instead, faith is living life by fully embracing being made in God's image. It's based on a relationship with the God of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. It includes prayer, study and reflection, but that's only one part. It's also defined by what's called "praxis" — reflection and action that is intertwined as one and that is always evolving.
Second, let me also say that faith doesn't take away time because in a way faith is time. Not literally, but faith is indeed caught up with time. Faith requires time and faith opens up new time in our lives. It transforms the time in which we live to make us more God-focused. And in the end, we hope that our lives of faith in some way will transcend the boundaries of time.
You see, faith is a process of coming to know and follow God through knowing your community, your culture, yourself and your world along with Scripture and Tradition. It's also learning to see things with the eyes of Jesus. It's more of a verb than a noun. And it is founded upon our practice of being "church," of being the pilgrim people of the God of Jesus Christ.
Faith is mutuality and faith is struggle. It's a unifying way of life in which there is no rigid separation between one area of our lives and another. Instead, there is only an entire lifetime of following God. For many, this means continually being liberated by the God of Jesus Christ and working for the liberation of others. For others, this means a lifetime of being healed by God and working for the healing of others. It's a struggling to unlock the life that is latent or repressed among us.
And to nurture our faith, we must be in relationship with others. Not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of an entire community. Like theologian Karl Rahner pointed out decades ago, this means that there is no individual Christianity. That's because we can't fully be Christians and seek God on our own. We can only seek God through being invested in a believing community that is in relation with the institutions of global Christianity.
Our God is a Living God. That's why only in time can we nurture our faith and only through experience can we become more faithful. We can fathom the depths of theological mysteries till the cows come home, but if we don't live these mysteries and become "little Christs" for each other, we've missed the point. We are to help bring out the image of God in each other. We are to help carry each other's burdens. And this is especially our call in ministering to the poor and the marginalized among us.
Faith unites. Not into conformity, but into a unified diversity that is God's image carried by ordinary men and women. Faith doesn't divide us but makes us one as the body of Christ. So by inviting the God of Jesus Christ into one part of our lives, we invite the Living God into all parts of our lives. In this way, we as a people enter into communion with the divine. As a community, this is part of our understanding of Eucharist, our celebration of God's real presence dwelling among us.
This doesn't mean we'll be perfect. And it sure doesn't mean that our churches will be perfect. But it does mean we'll look at ourselves, our families and communities and our God in a way that is always new and yet carries the full weight of our Christian tradition. At the end of every hard-earned day, everything old becomes new again.
Now that's a reason to believe.
— — —
Kevin Considine is a graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Recently he was married to a most wonderful woman who keeps him in line and makes sure his thoughts make sense. He and his wife live on the South Side of Chicago. He welcomes comments, feedback or fits of anger and can be reached at {email considkp@yahoo.com}considkp@yahoo.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kevin Considine.
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In a song I like, Bruce Springsteen sings: "Struck me kinda funny, seems kinda funny sir to me/How at the end of every hard-earned day people find some reason to believe."
I think we all have those days. You know, the days where we think our faith is a little strange. Those days when we hold onto belief but aren't exactly sure why.
Trust me. I understand.
After all, I live in Chicago. My adopted city is known for its hard-nosed realism. After all, we here are mired down in dealing with real problems like neighborhood violence, joblessness and homelessness, institutional racism and sexism and illegal immigration along with gentrification, family breakdown, idolizing material goods and pushing the poor and middle class out of the city.
That's not to mention other irritations such as a problematic Chicago Marathon, a public transportation system that continues issuing monthly "doomsday" scenarios and a police department that is dealing with abuses of power. And that's not to mention just trying to make a living each day.
So Springsteen is right. It is funny that at the end of every hard-earned day we still find a reason to believe. After all, why should we believe, when so much around us points to God's absence? Besides, who even has time to find a reason to believe?
I guess there are two things that come to mind. And they both deal with what we've come to know as "faith." First, let me clear something up. Faith isn't a secret knowledge that we attain when we get on God's good side. Instead, faith is living life by fully embracing being made in God's image. It's based on a relationship with the God of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. It includes prayer, study and reflection, but that's only one part. It's also defined by what's called "praxis" — reflection and action that is intertwined as one and that is always evolving.
Second, let me also say that faith doesn't take away time because in a way faith is time. Not literally, but faith is indeed caught up with time. Faith requires time and faith opens up new time in our lives. It transforms the time in which we live to make us more God-focused. And in the end, we hope that our lives of faith in some way will transcend the boundaries of time.
You see, faith is a process of coming to know and follow God through knowing your community, your culture, yourself and your world along with Scripture and Tradition. It's also learning to see things with the eyes of Jesus. It's more of a verb than a noun. And it is founded upon our practice of being "church," of being the pilgrim people of the God of Jesus Christ.
Faith is mutuality and faith is struggle. It's a unifying way of life in which there is no rigid separation between one area of our lives and another. Instead, there is only an entire lifetime of following God. For many, this means continually being liberated by the God of Jesus Christ and working for the liberation of others. For others, this means a lifetime of being healed by God and working for the healing of others. It's a struggling to unlock the life that is latent or repressed among us.
And to nurture our faith, we must be in relationship with others. Not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of an entire community. Like theologian Karl Rahner pointed out decades ago, this means that there is no individual Christianity. That's because we can't fully be Christians and seek God on our own. We can only seek God through being invested in a believing community that is in relation with the institutions of global Christianity.
Our God is a Living God. That's why only in time can we nurture our faith and only through experience can we become more faithful. We can fathom the depths of theological mysteries till the cows come home, but if we don't live these mysteries and become "little Christs" for each other, we've missed the point. We are to help bring out the image of God in each other. We are to help carry each other's burdens. And this is especially our call in ministering to the poor and the marginalized among us.
Faith unites. Not into conformity, but into a unified diversity that is God's image carried by ordinary men and women. Faith doesn't divide us but makes us one as the body of Christ. So by inviting the God of Jesus Christ into one part of our lives, we invite the Living God into all parts of our lives. In this way, we as a people enter into communion with the divine. As a community, this is part of our understanding of Eucharist, our celebration of God's real presence dwelling among us.
This doesn't mean we'll be perfect. And it sure doesn't mean that our churches will be perfect. But it does mean we'll look at ourselves, our families and communities and our God in a way that is always new and yet carries the full weight of our Christian tradition. At the end of every hard-earned day, everything old becomes new again.
Now that's a reason to believe.
— — —
Kevin Considine is a graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Recently he was married to a most wonderful woman who keeps him in line and makes sure his thoughts make sense. He and his wife live on the South Side of Chicago. He welcomes comments, feedback or fits of anger and can be reached at {email considkp@yahoo.com}considkp@yahoo.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kevin Considine.
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