On Faith
Beg for increase of faith.
“…Faith being the foundation of all virtue, this latter will be so much the more perfect as our faith is greater and more ardent. Let us do all we can to increase it. We cannot give it to ourselves, but we can increase it, like any other grace; first by prayer, after the example of the Apostles, when they cried out, ‘Increase our faith’; again, by a continual exercise of it, doing everything in a spirit of faith, so that we may live by faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ Especially should we try to grow familiar with the thought of God’s presence. If we were penetrated with it, we should never sin; we should pray well, be humble and modest in prosperity, strong and courageous in trials and temptations; we should do even the smallest thing with the greatest care, with a pure intention and ardent love; in one word, we should excel in virtue and live like saints.
…Faith raises us above material things, above what we perceive by our senses and understanding; it raises us unto the invisible, unto God, and the heights of His infinite perfections; it opens to us the splendour, glory, and happiness of our future country, Paradise. By faith our thoughts and aspirations become great and noble; we disdain all that is not eternal, we have no other ambition than that of laying up treasures in heaven. Faith raises us above ourselves, our weakness, our inconstancy; we become strong, invincible, even terrible to the devils, like to the first Christians, to those … martyrs who, says St Paul, triumphed by faith over threats and persuasions, over the horrors of prison and exile, even over cruel suffering and death. Read that wonderful picture of faith (Hebrews xi). By faith even our most ordinary actions become noble, meritorious, often heroic before God.
These thoughts will doubtless rekindle in your heart an ardent desire of excelling in faith, in that lively faith which proves itself by works and by a holy life. By these merits, i.e., by the conformity of our actions with our faith, we can judge of its worth and degree. ‘Try your own selves,’ says the Apostle, ‘if you be in the faith’; if there be not a contradiction between what you believe and what you do. You believe, for instance, that your immortal soul is worth far more care than your body; yet do you not act as though it were otherwise? You believe that God sees you, observes you, reads the depths of your heart; but how often does it happen that when alone you act as if there were no witness of your falsehoods, your grave negligences and omissions, of your vain and useless thoughts? You believe that without the spirit of prayer, which supposes both recollection and mortification, you will be a religious only in name and in habit; yet you prepare your meditation carelessly, you make few efforts to become recollected and mortified. Judge for yourself, after this examen, and see what you have to do from this day forward.”
~From Practical Meditations For Every Day of the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ (first translated from the French in 1868)
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