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The Gospel passage offered on high for this 20th Sunday after Pentecost is from John 4: 46-53. Remember: the readings at Mass also have a sacrificial character. That’s why in the Vetus Ordo they are also read by the priest (not just also a deacon) at the altar of sacrifice (and not just at the ambo). Each reading is raised on high as if the Son, present in every holy word, is offering himself to the Father. How, therefore, ought we prayerful and eagerly ready ourselves before Mass to receive what is being offered!
Some context. At this point in John 4 Jesus had been in Samaria. He encountered the woman at the well who ran to tell the people in town that she had found the Messiah. Many Samaritans from that city
believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word.
After this Christ returns to Galilee and goes again to Cana, where He had performed his first public miracle at the wedding banquet. Of his second visit to Cana, St. Augustine says,
There, as John himself writes, “his disciples believed on him.” Though the house was crowded with guests [of the wedding banquet], the only persons who believe in consequence of this great miracle were his disciples. He therefore visits the city again [in order to try a second time to convert them] (Tractates on John, 16.3).
In Cana Christ meets a basilikos, in Latin a regulus or nobleman, perhaps a prince or an official of Herod ruling in the area, who had come from Capernaum to Cana to find the Lord. The nobleman begs Jesus to come to his house and heal his son who was near death from a fever. Christ says, in contrast to his experience in Samaria,
Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe (v. 48).
However, this nobleman “believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went his way” (v. 50). On his way he received word that his son had recovered. And he, again, “believed”,
The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live”; and he himself believed, and all his household.
So, the nobleman believed twice. St John Chrysostom notes that the fact that the man sought Jesus indicates faith. However, Christ utters his gentle rebuke about signs and wonders before performing his second miracle at Cana. Then the man “believes”… really. Again, John Chrysostom notes that a father will do anything for his child but perhaps he sought the Lord more in desperation than in faith (Homilies on John 35.2). Gregory the Great offers something similar (Forty Gospel Homilies 28). What Christ does from a distance at Cana for the boy in Capernaum heals not just the boy but the father as well. He makes his faith well and whole. At John Chrysostom says, Christ,
heals the father who was sick in mind no less than the son in order to persuade us to listen to Him, not because of his miracles but because of his teaching. Miracles are not for the faithful, but for the unbelieving and for people who are not as knowledgeable about the faith (ibid 35.2).
Christ perfects the man who, in his imperfect way, approached him for his mercy and, in obtaining His mercy and gaining true faith, he gained also peace.
In Mark 9 a desperate father brings his violently possessed son to the Lord. The disciples had been unable to exorcise him. The Lord exclaims “O faithless generation!” (v. 19). Then
Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
Sometimes we waver or struggle in our faith. This is not a surprise, for we are not angels who, understanding things in their very essence and lacking the appetites that come with being individuated in matter cannot change their minds. We are buffeted about in life. Doubts can creep in. We must be alert at these moments and take steps to both apply our own elbow grease to the spanner in the gears and beg for graces from God. We also have to make distinctions. There is a difference between difficulties with aspects of the faith and doubts. As St John Henry Newman wrote:
Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.
Difficulties and doubts can be overcome, often by an effort on our part to know our faith better. Faith, as St. Anslem said, seeks understanding. There is a faith in which we believe and a faith by which we believe, which is grace. Our contact with the content of the faith can heal many difficulties and doubts. This is because the content of the faith isn’t just things we study, learn and repeat. The content of the faith is also a Person, Jesus Christ the Eternal Word, Way, Truth, Life.
What is faith? Faith is the object of belief, and it is the sum of all the truths taught in the Catholic religion. Faith is also one of the three theological virtues infused with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This faith disposes our intellect to assent to the truths revealed by God and taught by the Church. St. Paul in Hebrews 11:1 says, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” When we know a thing for sure, we know it and we don’t believe it. When something about it is lacking, we take it “on faith”. In 1 Cor 13:12, Paul wrote: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.”
So, faith is a habit of the mind by which eternal life begins in us and which makes the intellect assent to things which we do not see. Faith, furthermore, is necessary for justification and for salvation. But it must be true faith and not just confidence, which can verge on presumption. That was an error of Luther condemned by Trent (Sess. 6, can. 12). Moreover, for salvation faith must be informed by the theological virtue of charity.
It is important for us to grow in our knowledge of our faith, to read and reflect on the truths of our faith. If we do this also with prayer, we are in dialogue with Christ. Some people perhaps have not cracked a catechism since their First Communion prep or their Confirmation. It may have been decades. Such a pity. Such opportunity squandered. Still, there is no time like the present to make a start. As long as we have breath, we can do what we can and our loving God will give us the actual graces we need.
One thing we can do in our daily lives to stay strong and on the right side of things is to recite the Acts of Faith, Hope and Love. You might have already learned them, though in this epoch of dreadful catechism and religion “education” in some places, maybe we can’t make that assumption. An act of faith is a supernatural act of the intellect which makes a firm assent to truth revealed by God. Sometimes this happens in a moment of realization, as many converts and reverts experience, as well as people who were perhaps lukewarm and come to greater faith, maybe like the man in the Gospel. At times, we strengthen this act of the intellect with the repetition of a formula in words. That said, if you have lasted to this point, you are not getting out of this essay without having at least one time in your life read (maybe aloud?) the class Act of Faith:
O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three Divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I believe that Thy Divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.
