Crisis of FAITH

“In the last few years I have been going through a crisis of faith: did not man perhaps create ‘God’ because of his need to look for comfort? And if there are other universes, could they have been created by the same ‘God’? Would I be Catholic today if I had been born in a country with other religious traditions? Can you help me understand?”
J.D.

Your crisis of faith is perhaps a typical crisis of modern men and women reacting to a religion that has been imposed on them by religious authorities and by society.

Even I have thought of these things when I found my religion not satisfying my deepest needs and longings, or when I see people in suffering resorting to divine aid, while they can do something to change their situations.

In different traditions, in people’s hearts there is a longing to go beyond, to seek the other, and even the Divine.

It is just the sign of a longing to be in communion and to be in relationship with others on earth and for eternity.

In the course of history, we are also discovering the origins of the universe, and each new discovery and leap in human history also changes our image of the Supreme Being.

As science and technology advance, our consciousness of God is sometimes played down and even removed from the picture.

It is even made to appear irrelevant to the point of suggesting that the universe can generate itself.

Let’s clarify a point about our Christian faith, it is not only a set of logical beliefs, though this is an important aspect, but more so it is also a life that trustingly follows the plans of a Father who reveals through men and circumstances his beautiful design of love for the universe and mankind.

True, in difficulties we easily turn to God for help, since we conceive of him as someone superior to our condition.

Hopefully, we are not fixated and so dependent as to make the relation- ship one-way instead of two-way.

The Christian God as perceived by, and revealed to, Christians down the centuries, or better, intuited by Christians, is a Person and a Father who knows our hearts and our limits, but also our strengths.

He is a God of Love and if we relate to him in love, this will also surely change our understanding of him and we’ll get to know him better just like the way we relate in love to our friends and family, when we get to know them better.

We hope that our faith will mature from dependency to cooperation in his design of good for humanity.

Another way to find answers to our many religious problems is by living the Golden Rule or the Law of Love which is present in all major religions.

In living it, we will understand more what it is that unites people of different cultures and religions.

Practicing it has helped people with their many religious problems.

It really boils down to the two major commandments: true love of God and neighbor.

This is enough to resolve our many crises of faith and the crises of our world today.

We can resolve them by living our faith.

Letizia Grita Magri and Joseph Amdi

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Live-in or MARRIAGE?

“I have friends who are in a live-in relationship. I see that they are happy and co-existing well. This raises some doubts about the value of marriage as binding while a live-in arrangement seems to offer more freedom and comfort. Can you help me on this?”
O.S. from Manila

While I don’t doubt the fact that your friends are indeed capable of finding happiness, freedom and comfort in their live-in set-up, this doesn’t make marriage, because of its “binding” character, a lonely and inescapable trap.

On the contrary, the contained and restricted bonds of married life are those that actually create the necessary and indispensable climate for sustained growth in mutual selfgiving, based on trust, acceptance and commitment.

How is this so? Let me offer an analogy.

Children play while adults go to work.

This is a simple, easily observable and rather universal reality of our life.

But when you examine this closely, you realize that this simple reality is just a part of a much bigger, much more meaningful reality.

Imagine, for example, if parents leave their children to play all day long, even allowing them to abandon school and the minor house chores assigned to them.

Although they may seem happy, free and at ease at the moment since they are given unlimited chance to play, it is not difficult to imagine that when they become adults, they will then find it difficult to value sacrifice, responsibility and commitment.

Life’s ultimate goal is self-actualization, not self-indulgence.

What makes me happy, free and comfortable now is not necessarily what would make me become the person I was created to be by God.

Similarly, what seems to bring me pain and inconvenience are not necessarily a hindrance to my growth.

This line of reasoning however has meaning only in the context of a personal, reciprocal and ongoing relationship of love.

Otherwise, all the talk about responsibility, sacrifice and self-denial will just have the bearing of legalism, even masochism.

Ultimately, selfactualization finds its full blossoming in the experience of genuine communion— the point of departure and the point of arrival in every Christian marriage.

Fr.Mimo Perez

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