See the world through Faith: Homily for Thursday, March 21, 2024

Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.

The Enlightenment brought many great benefits. But one flaw was the exclusion of faith for reason alone.

See the world through Faith

So we have today the covenant with Abraham. And when we have an action, a divine action, like we’ve seen today with the covenant with Abraham, it’s a reminder that we have to remember that what we see is not always the entire story.

Since the Enlightenment, there’s been a profound focus, and with lots of wonderful benefits, on what we can see, what we can touch, what we can experience. The senses have come to be more primary, and the gift of reason was raised to a higher level, perhaps, than before. In and of itself, that’s not completely a bad thing. Many great things, many great advances came through the emphasis upon reason.

The danger, though, is that many in the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment world only relied on reason. And they dismissed the other, what Pope Benedict would refer to as the other wing of our ability to know, faith. Even for people who were religious, there was such an emphasis on reason that faith often was never considered.

There was the quest, for example, for the historical Jesus. But the historical Jesus, this quest often became the historical Jesus alone, an attempt to explain away every miracle with a natural explanation.

Now, I mention this because in order to understand today’s gospel, we have to understand that we live in this dual world. That, yes, we are to use our reason. St. Thomas Aquinas would say that reason and faith never contradict.

But that we are to recognize that we need to see the world also through the eyes of faith. You can’t see the covenant with Abraham using the senses alone. And it had to be quite difficult for Abraham to believe hearing about all these descendants he was going to have, when especially at this point in his life, he had no children. It required him to see with the eyes of faith.

Understanding who Jesus is in the gospel required the eyes of faith. It required people to know Jesus for who he really was. But if they only relied on reason alone, if they only relied on their senses, then we see the questions they ask when Jesus speaks through the eyes of faith.

How can you say that people won’t die? We know that people die. How can you say you knew Abraham? That was centuries ago. Youre not very old. It can be that way for us too. Today, and as we get very close to beginning the celebration of Holy Week, we’re called to remind ourselves that the ultimate covenant that God has made with us, with you and with me, is with Jesus. Jesus is both the giver of the covenant and the covenant itself.

But in order to fully appreciate what that means for us, we need to ask the Lord to help us to see with the eyes of faith, to recognize that we live in a world of grace, to ask the Lord to help us to grow in this faith and to realize this grace, so that we might freely and generously respond to it in order to live with Jesus forever.

On the friar, you can listen to our homilies (based on the readings of the day) and reflections. You can also ask us to pray for you or to pray for others. You can subscribe to our website to be informed whenever we publish an update.

About Author