![]() ![]() On the one hand, it is a light coming from the past, the light of the foundational memory of the life of Jesus which revealed his perfectly trustworthy love, a love capable of triumphing over death. Faith, received from God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for our way, guiding our journey through time. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfilment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us. Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God. The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. Yet in the absence of light everything becomes confused it is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road to our destination from other roads which take us in endless circles, going nowhere.Ĥ. As a result, humanity renounced the search for a great light, Truth itself, in order to be content with smaller lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet prove incapable of showing the way. Slowly but surely, however, it would become evident that the light of autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future ultimately the future remains shadowy and fraught with fear of the unknown. Faith was thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation, but not something which could be proposed to others as an objective and shared light which points the way. Such room would open up wherever the light of reason could not penetrate, wherever certainty was no longer possible. ![]() There were those who tried to save faith by making room for it alongside the light of reason. In the process, faith came to be associated with darkness. Faith would thus be the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the path of a liberated humanity to its future.ģ. From this starting point Nietzsche was to develop his critique of Christianity for diminishing the full meaning of human existence and stripping life of novelty and adventure. Belief would be incompatible with seeking. The young Nietzsche encouraged his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to tread "new paths… with all the uncertainty of one who must find his own way", adding that "this is where humanity’s paths part: if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek". Faith thus appeared to some as an illusory light, preventing mankind from boldly setting out in quest of knowledge. In modernity, that light might have been considered sufficient for societies of old, but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a humanity come of age, proud of its rationality and anxious to explore the future in novel ways. Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries. Those who believe, see they see with a light that illumines their entire journey, for it comes from the risen Christ, the morning star which never sets.Ģ. To Martha, weeping for the death of her brother Lazarus, Jesus said: "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" ( Jn 11:40). Conscious of the immense horizon which their faith opened before them, Christians invoked Jesus as the true sun "whose rays bestow life". "No one - Saint Justin Martyr writes - has ever been ready to die for his faith in the sun". The sun does not illumine all reality its rays cannot penetrate to the shadow of death, the place where men’s eyes are closed to its light. Yet though the sun was born anew each morning, it was clearly incapable of casting its light on all of human existence. The pagan world, which hungered for light, had seen the growth of the cult of the sun god, Sol Invictus, invoked each day at sunrise. Saint Paul uses the same image: "God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts" ( 2 Cor 4:6). In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: "I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness" ( Jn 12:46). The light of Faith: this is how the Church’s tradition speaks of the great gift brought by Jesus. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |