By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
October 11, 2020: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 25: 6-10a; Philippians 4: 12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14
Faith is the way we live our daily life in relation to God. It would be a dry and futile understanding to look at faith as a set of doctrines or principles to be known, learnt, memorised and repeated on occasions. Faith instead has to affect every day life and every moment of it. Faith, in theological terms, is explained as one’s personal response to the self revealing God. But to make it simple we can just understand it as the way we live every moment of our life, within the perspective offered to us by God who created us and has called us to a specific vocation in life.
Today, the readings invite us to a clear understanding of what this faith is all about, specially in our daily living. The faith that the Lord invites us to, is a specific way of life, a mode of organising our life worthy of our call to be children of God! Here are three adjectives that the Word offers us to understand and identify a Fitting Faith for today:
Faith is Festive: a life of faith is a call to celebrate. God has set up a feast and invites us to come and celebrate it! God has created us a wonderful world, filled it with persons to love and so many things to cherish, and has let us enjoy it all in freedom and cooperation. But what do we do? We choose to see the negative things that are around, we choose to take them in and be filled with them, we choose to have, hold on to, and spread negative feelings; we choose to hate, envy and ruin each other’s life; in short, we refuse to celebrate! We have umpteen reasons to say no to celebrate life!
We refuse to attend the feast, that the Lord has prepared for us, so adamant and obstinate are we! If only we live our life in relation to God, that is, with the perspective of God, we will find out how much we can celebrate. It is a pity that there are people who readily find reasons to lament and whine about, but find it so difficult to find even one reason to rejoice and celebrate! You change whatever you wish, they will remain with the same state of mine! God forbid that you and I fall into that category! When St. Paul says, he knows to live in want and in plenty, he is not boasting of his capacity to endure; it is more about that mindset which looks at everything from the perspective of God – because, whether lack or plenty, I know I can remain calm and I know I have things still to celebrate about.
Faith is Focused: a life of faith is a call to fix our eyes on God. Doubts, confusions, fears, suspicions, pressures, stress, problems, struggles, misunderstandings, competitions, disappointments, distractions, temptations, tears, treason… these are experiences that come our way sometime or the other… and in these days they seem to be galore. What would our point of reference be: luck, skills, human efficiency, proving oneself?
‘Behold our God to whom we looked to save us’, presents Isaiah. God will provide everything declares St. Paul. Our focus has to be on Christ. Look to Him and be radiant says the Psalm (34:5). At times individuals, and humanity in general thinks we can manage everything on our own. We think we are in control of everything…a phenomenon like the pandemic we are facing now, throws all those vain certainties into thin air! Look at how the otherwise overconfident world of science is fumbling all the way since this pandemic showed its ugly head amidst us! It serves us to understand a bitter lesson, we have lost our focus somewhere down the line! Let us regain that focus, let us refocus our lives and our choices, that we may do good to ourselves and to every one else, and to the whole humanity.
Faith is Firm: a life of faith is a call never to compromise. Today, the culture is such that there is a big confusion whether there is anything that is unacceptable. Every thing seems permissible and every thing seems ‘alright’, if not ‘normal’! There is a justification for everything. It is growing to be a culture of ‘what-ifs’ and ‘why-nots’…but faith provides us with a firm foundation, firm criteria to make our choices. “My friend, how is it that you got in without the wedding garments?”…”My friend how is it that you expect to be with me without making a choice for me?”…”My friend, how is it that you had chosen something, but have been living totally another life?”…we have to be prepared to face these questions, if at all we compromise!
Our faith is an ‘Yes’ that we say to the Lord, which would involve a number of small yes’es and no’s… and any compromise in it will make us unfit for the Feast of the Reign. Just imagine on a daily basis, how many compromises we make… in our thoughts, in our words, in our choices, in our dealings with others, in our actions towards the society, in the stands we take towards the common good and wellbeing of all. It may not be, though unfortunately sometimes it is, great big scandals…but even small decisions, little gestures, minor choices…these determine that type of personality we shape ourselves up to be. If our true and inner image is God’s image and likeness, it has to be seen in every little detail of our lives…and today, it is becoming much more a need as the world lack testimonies to true faith.
On a daily basis…let us evaluate our life and our choices…are they truly festive? fully focused? and really firm on the way to God? Only that would prove a fitting faith for today!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.