FOURTH WEEK OF LENT: "FAITH"
Each Sunday during this Holy Season of Lent, we will offer a reflection based on the lives and writings of Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi. We hope and pray that you will find these reflections helpful as you walk with Christ Jesus on the long road toward his passion, death, and resurrection.
An Admonition by Saint Francis of Assisi
Suppose that you had cleverness and learning enough to know all things; that you were acquainted with all languages, the courses of the stars, and all the rest; what is there in that to be proud of? A single demon knows more on these subjects than all the men in the world put together! But there is one thing that the demon is incapable of, and which is the glory of man: to be faithful to God (Saint Francis of Assisi, Admonitions 5).
The Devil's Bag of Tricks
This Lent, members of our parish book club are reading "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis, a modern masterpiece of both satire and spirituality. In this classic book, Lewis shares the correspondence between two demons that battle with Christ for the soul of a single believer. Just one week into our reading, several members of our group have confessed their discomfort with the book -- with Lewis' almost frightening (but sadly accurate) insight into the human condition; with his darkly humorous treatment of the subject matter; and with the ways in which the two demons tempt their target toward the darkness.
Saint Francis of Assisi knew a great deal about the darkness that infects humanity. Before his conversion, Francis witnessed the horror of war. He suffered as a prisoner of war. He cringed at and turned away from the poor and the sick. He reveled in parties, possessions, and privilege. Well into his third decade of life, Francis was a man of the world, a man of the times.
After his conversion, Francis, like C.S. Lewis nearly eight centuries later, knew about how the devil seeks to lure us away from the gospel life. If one reads "The Screwtape Letters", one could make a long list of the dark ways by which demons tempt us. They seek to turn simple pleasures into obsessions. They seek to inspire malevolence toward those we know and benevolence toward those we don't know. They seek to direct our thoughts toward the things of the world and away from the things of God. They seek to misdirect our prayer -- prompting us to focus on the self-congratulatory action of praying, rather than the object of our prayer: the triune God. They seek to guide our thoughts toward arrogance and self-satisfactions. The devil's bag of temptations seems so powerful. Our defenses seem so weak.
Francis, like Lewis, also knew about human weakness; about our weakness when compared to the tricks played by the devil, the darkness, the tempter, or however we might refer to theat unholy force that lures us away from holiness. But these two Christian men also knew that the devil's tricks fail when confronted by one simple thing. That thing is faith.
Faith: Simple & Awesome
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (in part) defines faith as "both a gift of God and a human act by which the believer gives personal adherence to God who invites his response, and freely assents to the whole truth that God has revealed."
The Oxford English Dictionary defines faith simply as "complete trust in someone or something." We might have faith in our car -- until that car fails to start on a frosty morning. We might have faith in a politician -- until that politician breaks a promise. We might have faith in many things of this world, but such faith is misplaced. Such faith is misplaced because only God -- only Our Father in Heaven; only Christ Jesus, his Son; and only his Holy Spirit -- deserve our absolute and abiding faith.
God deserves our faith and our faithfulness because God alone emptied himself for our sake when he sent Christ Jesus to live among us. God deserves our faith and our faithfulness because Christ Jesus embraced the cross for our sake. God deserves our faith and our faithfulness because he raised Christ from death, thereby conquering death and darkness.
These are simple, but awesome truths. They are the simple, but most profound realities of our faith. We might be smart. We might be powerful. We might be wealthy. But if we forget these basic truths, Saint Francis warns that we will fall prey to the devil's tricks and temptations. Again, only by the light of faith (and actions born of faith) can we conquer darkness.
Francis summarizes faith in this way: "Fear and honor God, praise and bless him. Give thanks to him. Adore the Lord...Forgive and you will be forgiven...Abstain carefully from all evil and persevere in the good until the end (Rule of 1221)."
One can imagine Francis, the Poor One of Assisi. He smiles and shakes his head at our modern world and its cleverness, conveniences and technologies. Francis, barefoot and dressed in rags, stands on a tree stump. He looks upon us from across the centuries. He look upon us with faith, hope, and love. He pleads: "Be simple! Love God because God loves you! For God so loved the world that he gave us his only son, our savior! Believe! Pray! Love God! Love Christ! Love each other! Have faith!" In this way, we give glory to God and we conquer the darkness.
Saint Francis, pray for us!
Saint Clare, pray for us!
Holy men and women of Assisi, pray for us!
