Men's Rosary

We sometimes tend to overcomplicate matters of faith and spirituality.  I have had too many discussions with people who make an immense chore out of living a life rooted in prayer and love of God.  It is too easy to become buried in the facts and the rubrics and the traditions, and our personal preferences.  I suppose the question is, are we living a life according to God or according to our wants, beliefs, and merits?

In contrasting the Pharisees to the disciples of Jesus and the earliest believers in His teachings, I see a contrast between faith and knowledge.  On the one hand are the Pharisees who were all about the “law” and the rituals.  Even those among them that may have thought Jesus to be the Messiah were distraught in the battle between faith and reason as well as the status of themselves.  If Jesus is the fulfillment of the “law” where did that leave them?  And on the other hand, were His disciples and first believers.  They did not have all the facts and answers, but they knew and believed in their hearts that Jesus was the Messiah.  As such, the Pharisees did not obey anything Jesus said, while the disciples and first believers obeyed in spite of their lack of understanding.

So, who are we going to be?  Pharisees or disciples? 

We will be Pharisees in the sense of letting our knowledge and quest for perfection undermine a true faith in Christ and seeking God’s will.  We will fail in embracing the truth and sharing it with others.  We will be blinded by our lack of hope and dependence on physical evidence.  We will not have true Faith.  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  For by it the men of old received divine approval.  By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.” (Hebrews 11:1-3)

We will be disciples in the sense that we will simply answer Christ’s call to listen.  He, after all, is the Word made flesh.  The only way to the Father is through him (John 14:16).  To be good disciples we have only to listen, obey and act.  “But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”” (Luke 11:28)  While all the rubrics, traditions, etc. are important, it comes down to faith in God, listening to His word, resigning to His will, and going out and making other disciples.  How are we doing with that?

I pray that we all will listen attentively and simply obey, even when we do not understand.  Even when we are unhappy or upset with any particular issue or circumstance.  Seek God’s voice in the quiet.  Time needs to be taken away from the distractions of the world to hear His voice.  In our free will we must accept what we hear and unite ourselves with His will.

Faith is what sets a disciple of Christ apart from the rest.  We know God’s ways are not our ways and we relinquish our grip on our life and place it in God’s hands.  His love is enough.

“For those with faith, no evidence is necessary; for those without it, no evidence will suffice.”  (St. Thomas Aquinas)