Faith

 

Hello everyone. There I was the other day visiting Father Ignatius at Saint Vincent parish house. In my imagination of course.

We were enjoying a cup of hot chocolate drink and ginger marmalade on toast. I know, you'll think that chocolate and ginger marmalade don't go together but in my imagination they do and they tasted quite nice.

There we were enjoying our breakfast; Father Donald was also there and Mrs. Davenport of course. And it suddenly occurred to me that I was in the midst of great intellect and simplicity at the same time.

The two priests are very well educated and Mrs. Davenport has a way of looking at things in the most innocent way, in her own way shall we say. You know, I shall never forget the day when a young pupil doing his science homework at parish house asked her "if a person is in a vacuum can you hear him speak?" And she replied, "well, it depends whether the vacuum is switched on at the time and how much dust is in the vacuum bag".

Well that's Mrs. Davenport for you. But this led me to think, how does God deal with great intellect and simplicity? Some people in this world are very learned and indeed very clever, whereas some others are not. Does God expect more from the clever ones?

Like in the parable of the servants and the talents. Does God expect more from those that have learned theology, that have learned religion, compared to those that have not? For example, how does God deal with the way we live our Christianity and the way we live our lives?

Some people, like our friend Mrs. Davenport for instance, would perhaps go to church, say her prayers and light her candle every now and then. Something which have done many times myself. Is that enough for God I wonder?

And how about our faith? Some people have much faith; much much more faith than others. In my life I have known people who have suffered great hardships, with many illnesses and disease, and some have been in great pain, yet their faith remains ever so strong. They're an example to us all and they make me feel ever so humble and ever so small, because I stumble at the very first hurdle and fall whenever things get difficult and whenever things get hard for me. And I fall quite often believe me.

How does God view my weakness in faith? How does God view the weakness of people's faith? 

Just like the disciples, I've asked Jesus many times “please give me more faith!”

I suppose He smiled and said, “you can't handle the little faith I have given you already.”

I supposed to me it's a great comfort to look at Saint Peter and see how often he too stumbled. You remember he tried to walk on water yet lost his faith and nearly drowned. And despite being with Jesus for three years, and witnessing His divinity on earth, he still denied Him three times, and God forgave him.

I hope when we all get to meet God and see Him face-to-face He'll be forgiving and loving towards those amongst us who have little faith and who fail time and time again and keep on trying.

Thank you very much for listening. God bless you.

NOTE: Fathers Ignatius and Donald, and Mrs Davenport, are characters in my books.