Sunday Reflection with Canon Pat Browne - Doubt and Faith

Canon Pat Browne

A man returned to his car in the parking lot of a supermarket, to discover that the side had been badly dented by some other car. Naturally, he was very upset. He was somewhat relieved, however, to see that there was a note under one of the wipers. At least, whoever was responsible had owned up, and there was a chance that the other person's insurance would take care of the damage.

He opened the piece of paper, and it read: 'The people who saw me bumping into the side of your car are watching me now. They think that I am leaving my name and address for you, when you arrive. They are wrong!'

In other words he went through the motions of doing the right thing.Day after day after day, you and I can go through the motions - but that is not enough... It will never satisfy us and especially when we are going through the motions of religion. It wll leave us empty and dry. Religion is about entering into a relationship with God. Like entering into any meaningful relationship that will be on the one hand exciting, an adventure, but on the other hand it will be painful. There is no deep love achieved between two people without the facing of lots of questions about myself and about them.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta is to be canonised a saint in September this year.

But this is not happening because she always felt close to God. Indeed we learnt a few years ago when we saw some of the letters she wrote to a priest that she struggled with doubts. She had a crises of faith more than once.

She writes:

Lord you have thrown me away as unwanted. unloved.
I call, I cling, I want, and there is no answer. No one. No one.
Alone. Where is my Faith? Even deep down there is nothing.
I have no faith.
I am told God loves me
and yet the reality of the cold and darkness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.
Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?

What she went through has been gone through by many of the great saints before her. They too have written about it. It is called the Dark night of the Soul. When I feel I am talking to the wall. That there is no God.. Nothing. No meaning. No purpose. No point to life.

But this is not necessarily lack of faith. Indeed if a person can hang in there faithfully to their Beloved during times like this - that is what TRUE faith is.
Many people will want to tell you that faith is FEELING the closeness of God. This is wrong. A modern-day heresy.

This has spilled over into our human relationships too.

In modern marriages and friendships why are people giving up? Because they don't feel close to each other any more?

You cannot feel close to someone all the time. But you can believe in someone all the time. Faith is - faithfulness - no matter how I feel.

It is that faith that makes for true friendship, good marriages, deep love and in relation to God, meaningful religion.

Yes it is great when we do FEEL close. In those moments when we do feel close - that is a Gift, a Grace.

God is very big - like a mountain. Take the example of a mountain. You look at it from afar and see it in all its beauty and you stand in admiration of it. That is what some people think God is like - that mountain to be admired and worshipped from afar.

But so long as you are miles away from the mountain you have no relation to it - in any depth anyway. You are not experiencing the mystery of it. Its magic. You think you see it clearly and know it because you have this vision of it from afar. But you don't. Because you are not involved in it. The only people who really know that mountain are those who live in it and are in relation to it.

Okay they cannot see what the whole of it is like - they are too close to it. But they know it because they live in it - day by day they experience its beauty and its harshness. The shelter and security of it and the dangers - They know it on days of clear blue skies and on days of fog so thick you cannot see your own hand. It is the place where they have life.

That is how we must live - in relation to God. Be part of the mystery and enjoy it and stop trying to explain it away. Not from afar but from within. And one day everything will be made clear to us.

Til then we live by faith and not by sight or feeling. To doubt is to have questions. Nothing wrong with that. To believe is to say, in spite of these questions, I choose you.

Thomas chose Christ today because Christ appeared to him risen. He saw Christ. But Christ doesn't praise Thomas - you believe 'cos you can see me. Jesus praises you and me - the ones who unlike Thomas have not seen, yet we believe.

Canon Pat Browne is Parish Priest at Holy Apostles, Pimlico, central London, and Roman Catholic Duty Priest at the Houses of Parliament.