19th Sunday in Ordinary Time – C
August 7, 2022 5pm
Our Lady of Grace Parish, Parkton
Trust Not Clarity
Back in the early 1990s, a priest named John Kavanaugh went to Calcutta to work at Mother Teresa’s “house of the dying.”
Father Kavanaugh was looking for a clear answer about his future and whether to remain a priest. On his first morning at the “house of the dying,” he met Mother Teresa.
She asked, “What can I do for you?” He asked her to pray for him.
Mother Teresa then asked, “What do you want me to pray for?” Father Kavanaugh responded, “Pray that I have clarity.”
Mother Teresa answered, “No!” When Father Kavanaugh asked why, she said that clarity was the last thing he was holding on to, and he needed to let go of it.
Father Kavanaugh responded that she always seemed to have clarity. Mother Teresa laughed and said, “I have never had clarity.
“What I’ve always had is trust. So, I will pray that you trust.”
Faith as Trust
Mother Teresa’s insistence on trust is the core of faith and this is what we hear about in today’s second reading.
That long passage makes two points: 1) Faith is trust about what is not present but hoped for. And 2) faith is trust about what is present, but not seen.
1. Trust: Not Present, but Hoped For
So, first, faith is trust in what is not present, but hoped for.
The Letter to the Hebrews gives us Abraham as a model. Abraham and Sarah had lived in what is now Iraq, but at God’s calling, they set out for an unknown land.
They were also advanced in years, but they awaited the fulfillment of God’s promise of a child. So, they had trust in what was not present, but hoped for.
In our lives, we need this same kind of faith. At the very beginning, a child must leave the safety of the womb to be born into an unknown world.
At the very end, we are to let go of this life and move into a new life with God. And in between birth and death, we must leave home for the first day of school or college, or we must go from one job to another, or we must leave behind one habit or mindset and adopt another.
We are constantly called to have this kind of faith: this trust in what is not present, but hoped for.
2. Trust: Present, but Not Seen
And then, faith is trust about what is present, but not seen.
Faith is trust that there is a creator who is the very ground of our being; that this creator, God, is a Father who cares for us and that, in him, we always have a home to go to.
Faith is trust that God became human and that the distance between God and us has been bridged; that Jesus, the Son of God is with us in our joy and suffering, in our peace and upset.
Faith is trust that because Jesus Christ rose from the dead, life is not futile; that everything we do has meaning and value.
Faith is trust that the Holy Spirit is present to us as a community of faith and in the sacraments; that all of us are members of God’s family, one family, the living body of Christ on this earth.
We are constantly called to have this kind of faith also: this trust in what is present but not seen.
Conclusion
So, as Mother Teresa, Saint Teresa of Calcutta says, faith is not so much clarity as it is trust: trust about what is not present but hoped for, and trust about what is present but not seen.
With that understanding, we now once again offer our Profession of Faith.
