“Would you share with me your personal definition of faith?”
I came across that question on Facebook this afternoon, and it has driven me to distraction all afternoon as I pondered what I could respond.
It is such an amazingly personal question, but the query is posed with an acknowledgement of that — even suggesting that the answer could be sent via message. That’s part of the reason why I feel compelled to answer here although I could very well hide from the public discourse.
While it’s a deeply personal request to share the definition, it’s a profoundly public experience to live it.
For me, faith is a commitment. It’s a response to the gift of God. It’s a promise kept. It’s the thing that keeps me in the pew when I don’t want to be. What sends me to confession in spite of myself. What gives me hope when despair would be easier. What gives me joy in the highs…and the lows.
To live the faith means to assume the risk of living it publicly. Scary in today’s world, isn’t it?
I looked up what the Catechism has to say about faith, and found this:
166 Faith is a personal act – the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. You have not given yourself faith as you have not given yourself life. The believer has received faith from others and should hand it on to others. Our love for Jesus and for our neighbor impels us to speak to others about our faith. Each believer is thus a link in the great chain of believers. I cannot believe without being carried by the faith of others, and by my faith I help support others in the faith.
That’s why I wrote it here. To share my thoughts, and ask you the same.
“Would you share with me your personal definition of faith?”
My task, to expose these things, discuss them, deconstruct them, and try to wrench hope out of them…usually ends in…not what I hoped for. I strive to take the despair and channel it into something else, something positive. It’s hit or miss.