Belief in God  is more than an understanding of facts. It is not a matter of asking the question whether one believes in God or not. Daniel Dennett the world class atheist just down the street from us at Tufts University asks the question do you need to believe in God in order to know how to do the right thing? The last I heard, Mr. Dennett has never been charged with murder, even though he is an atheist, so I can assume that he has never murdered someone for one does not have to believe in God in order to understand that murder is wrong. Of course, that is the crux of Dennett’s argument and he is correct.

However, our faith is not a moral system it is a way of perceiving and moving through the universe around us. It is a way of life. Morality is an outgrowth of our faith, it is not faith itself. Faith gives us a way of perceiving and of being.

In today’s second reading we can see this well with the words of St. Paul, we walk by faith not by sight. In today’s parlance, we can say that we see the world through our eyes and perceive a deeper reality through our eyes of faith. Paul is giving a teaching based on understanding clothing ourselves in the things of the world and the  things of God. That when the things of the world, we remain clothed in the more brilliant vestments that come from God. The trappings of this world may vanish, but that is only so that we may be enveloped in the things of the Kingdom of God. This understanding leads us to walk by faith not by sight.

Let me give you an illustration. I had a friend who is blind and people never came to visit him at night. Why?  Because they would  drive by his house and notice all the lights were off. They assumed he was not home. They did not make the connection that a blind man sees without his eyes. Indeed, he could manuever through his house well at night without lights, while those with sight would trip over the furniture. He had to explain to people that being blind, the lights were never on in his house, unless he had visitors.

So in a sense the sign that you should visit him was that the lights were off at night and that sign that you should not interrupt his visits with others was  that his lights were on at night, the opposite of normal.

Well, so it is with us. We see with the eyes of faith and our physical eyes, but we are able to understand what others do not. We can see where others see nothing. we see the world through our eyes and perceive a deeper reality through our eyes of faith.

Now, I am not saying that we can physically see God and the angels where others see an empty street. But we have an understanding of the universe that others who have no faith do not see. Daniel Dennett is right, one does  not have to believe in God to decide that murder is wrong, but it stops there: one who does not believe in life after death has no hope beyond this.

I remember talking with a man doing life in prison. He kept saying that he fouled up one life, he wanted to make sure he did not foul up the next. He had a hope that others in equally otherwise hopeless situations do not have. This also gives us the whole concept of understand the courage it takes to live the faith because we have this hope. we see the world through our eyes and perceive a deeper reality through our eyes of faith.

Paul spent many of his days in chains but taught about the joy of knowing that he was to spend eternity in Heaven. This hope gave him a courage that others did not have. That others could not have, for they had no concept of eternal life. It is this same hope that fills the New Testament, this joy that we have for we have a hope that leads us to eternal life with Christ, to our destiny. We walk by faith and we see the world through our eyes and perceive a deeper reality through our eyes of faith.

One’s belief in God leads beyond just right from wrong, it leads to a whole orientation of life. It leads us to see disaster with hope that we will survive. It leads us to understand that there will be a time that we will again see those whom we love and we live our life with that hope. It leads us to change our way of living because of this faith and what we see in it. It leads us to know a truth that those who do not believe do not know.

Let me give another illustration, if you were to ask the great saints about the reality that you do not need to believe in God to seek virtue, they would agree, but would they would add that their faith is not centered on just doing the right thing, but in coming to know God on a personal level beyond anything one could find outside of the faith. The faith that teaches to pursue virtue also is filled with those who encountered God in the ancient monastic experience of contemplation. However, if you do not believe in God, you may seek virtue, but you will seek nothing but the pursuit of virtue. That is not a bad thing, but we what seek is more than to live a virtuous life, we seek to be united with the divine. We seek to encounter Christ on a level that is beyond simply doing the right thing. That is Catholicism. Indeed, when we reduce Catholicism to just the pursuit of virtue, we live a life that is not far from Daniel Dennett’s vision of life. We need to seek more than virtue by an encounter with Christ Himself.

A great example of this is St. Teresa of Avila’s book the Interior Castle where she describes a life that goes from turning from sin to a deep intimate encounter with the Divine. It was a life that she lived herself. This is a central tenet of Catholicism where we can say, we see the world through our eyes and perceive a deeper reality through our eyes of faith.

What is most important is that it leads us to act on that truth. We can act where others may not or cannot. Paul talks about having a courage because we already know our destiny. He calls us then to live our faith with the courage of knowing to where it is leading. The faith that says, I will represent God even when others may be calling me not to do so. I will be a person of hope even when others say there is no hope. I will deny myself some pleasure knowing that will lead me to greater joy in Christ. I will turn from temptation because I want to know Christ more. I will live my faith, by living a life shaped by the hope in things unseen instead of the despair in things that have no future.

we see the world through our eyes and perceive a deeper reality through our eyes of faith. We act based on this sight. We have hope where others do not have the ability to do so.

It is this we celebrate today.

God Bless You,

Fr Robert J Carr

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