HOMILY SERVICE - " Such is our faith! "

" Such is our faith! "

Canon Dr. Daniel Meynen

Briefly, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, faith is a spiritual contact through which we receive the fruits of the Passion of Christ, fruits that are constituted of the remission of our sins and of the gift of grace that introduces us into eternal Life, the very Life of God. In other words, let us say that, through faith, we live of the Life of the risen Jesus, and we are already resurrected with Him, in the measure that we remain in contact or in communion with the Passion of the Lord.

Faith always takes on two aspects, simultaneously, indissociably. The first aspect is that of obscurity: we must accept not seeing, touching, hearing, smelling or tasting what we believe. Even worse, we must accept not understanding what we believe. The second aspect is that of light. Although it is simultaneous with the first aspect, it is nonetheless its consequence: faith gives us light, faith enlightens us, faith illuminates all of our life, in the measure that we accept its apparent obscurity.

So Jesus invites his disciples to believe in him: "Believe in God, believe also in me." Is there a difference between believing in God and believing in Jesus? Yes, and it is essential. We Christians, we Roman Catholics, we believe in Jesus the Son of God. We do not believe only in God, as do the followers of other religions. We believe in this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, who died and was resurrected, who is first and foremost God, and the Son of God!

The Roman Catholic Church is proud of this faith, which she announces to the entire world! She is proud of this faith, for, through the grace and the mercy of God, contrary to all the Pilates who scorn the truth, the Roman Catholic Church is proud and happy to say that she has received from the Lord Jesus and from his Holy Spirit the deposit of the Truth about God and about Man in his entirety, created in the image and likeness of God, who is one, in three persons.

We know this saying of Jesus: "I am the way, the truth and the life." But do we understand it? It is not uncommon for us to speak of things we do not understand well. So when Jesus says: "I am the way", what does he mean? This: Jesus is the mediator, the intermediary, he through whom we must pass to go to the Father. And this implies that Jesus is both God and Man. Jesus is not solely man: he is also, and first, God, for he is our mediator, our sole mediator before God.

For Jesus, to be mediator means that he unites in himself the natures proper to each of the elements of his mediation, which are God (the Father), and man (every man or woman in particular). In other words, the mediator finds himself in the middle, between the extremes of his mediation, which are God and man. And it is indeed a middle in the proper sense, a geometric middle as well as a middle in the spiritual sense: for the Christian religion always involves both the body and the soul. Now, practically, materially, a middle is known and determined only if we know the total distance between the extremes. Thus, when we speak of Jesus the Way, the mediator who leads us to the Father, we are necessarily speaking of Jesus true God and true Man! Such is our faith.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father." How could we do works greater than those of Jesus? Quite simply by believing in Jesus, by believing in God! May the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, our model and our Mother in the faith, help us to always believe in her Son, in order that by thus participating in the Passion of the Lord, we might share in his Resurrection! Amen!


	" Such is our faith! " by Canon Dr. Daniel Meynen Briefly, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, faith is a spiritual contact through which we receive the fruits of the Passion of Christ, fruits that are constituted of the remission of our sins and of the gift of grace that introduces us into eternal Life, the very Life of God. In other words, let us say that, through faith, we live of the Life of the risen Jesus, and we are already resurrected with Him, in the measure that we remain in contact or in communion with the Passion of the Lord. Faith always takes on two aspects, simultaneously, indissociably. The first aspect is that of obscurity: we must accept not seeing, touching, hearing, smelling or tasting what we believe. Even worse, we must accept not understanding what we believe. The second aspect is that of light. Although it is simultaneous with the first aspect, it is nonetheless its consequence: faith gives us light, faith enlightens us, faith illuminates all of our life, in the measure that we accept its apparent obscurity. So Jesus invites his disciples to believe in him: "Believe in God, believe also in me." Is there a difference between believing in God and believing in Jesus? Yes, and it is essential. We Christians, we Roman Catholics, we believe in Jesus the Son of God. We do not believe only in God, as do the followers of other religions. We believe in this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, who died and was resurrected, who is first and foremost God, and the Son of God! The Roman Catholic Church is proud of this faith, which she announces to the entire world! She is proud of this faith, for, through the grace and the mercy of God, contrary to all the Pilates who scorn the truth, the Roman Catholic Church is proud and happy to say that she has received from the Lord Jesus and from his Holy Spirit the deposit of the Truth about God and about Man in his entirety, created in the image and likeness of God, who is one, in three persons. We know this saying of Jesus: "I am the way, the truth and the life." But do we understand it? It is not uncommon for us to speak of things we do not understand well. So when Jesus says: "I am the way", what does he mean? This: Jesus is the mediator, the intermediary, he through whom we must pass to go to the Father. And this implies that Jesus is both God and Man. Jesus is not solely man: he is also, and first, God, for he is our mediator, our sole mediator before God. For Jesus, to be mediator means that he unites in himself the natures proper to each of the elements of his mediation, which are God (the Father), and man (every man or woman in particular). In other words, the mediator finds himself in the middle, between the extremes of his mediation, which are God and man. And it is indeed a middle in the proper sense, a geometric middle as well as a middle in the spiritual sense: for the Christian religion always involves both the body and the soul. Now, practically, materially, a middle is known and determined only if we know the total distance between the extremes. Thus, when we speak of Jesus the Way, the mediator who leads us to the Father, we are necessarily speaking of Jesus true God and true Man! Such is our faith. "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father." How could we do works greater than those of Jesus? Quite simply by believing in Jesus, by believing in God! May the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, our model and our Mother in the faith, help us to always believe in her Son, in order that by thus participating in the Passion of the Lord, we might share in his Resurrection! Amen!