Saturday, July 7, 2012

He was Amazed at their Lack of Faith

For those of us who because of temperament or prejudice were not swept away with enthusiasm for the charismatic movement in the Church (40 years ago?), these words from the Gospel for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) remain as a sort of condemnation, deserved or undeserved: "He was amazed at their lack of faith." And some would say that's why Jesus doesn't or can't do anything for us: no healings, nothing extraordinary... Years back, I remember a couple German priest friends who said to me with a sense of resignation, that the only hope for sainthood for a great German martyr of World War II was a miracle some place in Latin America; not much chance in the rational atmosphere which reigned in their homeland of recognizing or accepting one should it perchance happen.

There is indeed a sort of rationalism abroad, which is for me more worrisome than that of Jesus being taken for granted in His native place, as Mark's Gospel today describes. While it is a taking for granted of the familiar, it is indeed worse in the sense that today's haughty sophisticate TV and radio talk-show atheists and scorners of religion reject what they have conveniently fabricated as caricature of the faith while bitterly and sneeringly leaving themselves outside of everything in God's universe with their totally irrational and unreasoned big bang or monkey's nephew theories that are nothing more than myths for the godless who settle for too much less than nothing.

In case you are wondering what I'm talking about, I saw a little piece of a YouTube video of Ross Douthat humoring Bill Maher and trying to sell his book "Bad Religion"... Why would you even want to go there Ross? I just don't know! How easily some people give price to the treasures of the Book of Genesis, when the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church approach them with fear and trembling. Where is our faith in the God Who made us and saved us?

"He was amazed at their lack of faith." Yes, rightly so. Our age too is a faithless one, which refuses to ask for a sign. We block the way to the Kingdom for others by our scandalous concessions to unbelief, while refusing to enter ourselves.

Pray for the recovery of faith during this upcoming year of faith: for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for all those who still cause the Lord amazement for their lack of faith! 

2 comments:

  1. http://www.sciencevsevolution.org/

    The terms of the argument are indeed science vs. evolution. Serious science has more respect for the notion of creation.

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  2. Here's a quote from St. Augustine which should give pause to think about what is at stake in scorning Genesis:
    "Shortly after my conversion I wrote two books against the Manichees, who are in error not because they are mistaken in their interpretation of the Old Testament but because they completely reject it with impious scorn. I wanted without delay either to refute their aberrations or to direct them to seek in the books which they hated the faith taught by Christ and the Gospels."

    John Hammond Taylor;Augustine. St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis: 001 (Ancient Christian Writers) (Kindle Locations 21-23). Kindle Edition.

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