18 — SEEKING GOD IN FAITH

Presence of God. — I recollect myself in the presence of God, living in my soul, to learn to seek Him through the light of faith.

Meditation

1 — “Whoever approaches God must believe” (Heb. 11, 6), teaches St. Paul, and he defines faith as “the reality of things hoped for, and conviction of things not seen” (ibid., 1). In heaven we shall know God through the light of glory; in this life we know Him through the light of faith.

We must not base our interior life, our search for God, on feeling, on spiritual consolations, but on an intense exercise of the theological virtues. To the soul seeking the Lord, St. John of the Cross teaches: “Hear a word full of substance and inaccessible truth: seek Him in faith and love, without wishing to draw satisfaction from anything” (C. 1, 11). We must therefore learn to seek God apart from every taste, consolation, and satisfaction, even spiritual; we must learn to walk in the way of “naked faith.” Faith, more than any knowledge and reasoning, puts the soul in direct contact with God; only faith “is the proximate and proportionate means to the union of the soul with God, because such is the likeness that exists between it and God that there is no other difference than that between God seen and God believed.” Faith sets us before God as He is; it does not let us see Him, but it lets us believe Him, and thus puts our intellect in contact with Him. Through faith “God manifests Himself to the soul in divine light, which exceeds all understanding. The soul, therefore, the more faith it has, the more it will be united to God” (J.C. Ascent II, 9, 1). Faith unites the soul with God, even when it enjoys no consoling experience of this; indeed God often deprives the soul of every spiritual sweetness so that it may exercise itself more in faith and grow in it.

2 — “Faith and love are like the guides of the blind, who will lead you by unknown paths there, to the hiding place of God” (J.C. C. 1, 11). Faith is the dark but sure adherence to the divine word that reveals to us the supreme greatness of our God, so sublime, so almighty, but also so good and merciful. Faith says to the Christian soul: you are the temple of the living God; and the more alive its faith is, the more it believes Jesus’ word: “If anyone loves me... my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn. 14, 23). By faith the soul believes in God’s infinite love that deigns to bend down over His creature so far as to place in it His dwelling, to invite it to live in intimate union with Him. “We have known and believed the charity that God has for us” (I Jn. 4, 16). This is the great act of our faith by which, though not seeing or experiencing with the senses, we proceed with the certainty of one who sees. “When the soul knows how to believe in this immense love resting upon it, one can say of it what is said of Moses: ‘He was immovable in his faith as if he had seen the Invisible.’ This soul no longer halts at tastes or feelings, it matters little to it to feel God or not to feel Him, it matters little whether He gives it joy or pain: it believes His love” (E.T. I, 6). “I know in whom I have believed” (II Tim. 1, 12), is the cry of the soul that believes without wavering and perseveres in seeking God despite darkness and dryness. But to attain this “unshakable faith” one must exercise oneself in it, one must pray: “I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief, increase my faith” (Mk. 9, 23; Lk. 17, 5).

Colloquy

Give me, Lord, pure, ardent, strong faith, that may sustain and guide me in the continual search for You, that may make me adhere to You with full certainty, though You remain hidden from my senses.

Only faith can make my mind adhere to You as You are. You are infinite, almighty, merciful, and thus faith presents You; You are One and Triune, and thus faith manifests You to my soul. Faith embraces You as You are, with all Your divinity, Your mysteries, Your works, and proposes everything to me to believe; so that in faith I find You whole and entire, and in the act of faith, though not seeing You, I possess You as You are. If faith keeps You secret and veiled, if it allows me to see You only “through a mirror, in an enigma” (I Cor. 13, 12), it is certain, however, that it does not deceive me, because it proposes that I believe You as You Yourself have revealed Yourself. How shall I not believe, Lord, Your word, since You have spoken to us not only by the mouth of the prophets, but by the mouth of Jesus, Your Incarnate Word? If faith proposes to believe mysteries and wonders that my poor mind cannot understand, I will not for this lose my bearings. What mystery is greater than Your infinite charity which has loved me from eternity, which created me in an act of love, which redeemed me in the Blood of Your Only-Begotten, which has made my poor soul the temple of the Most Holy Trinity? “By Your word alone I believe with full certainty. I believe all that the Son of God has said; nothing is truer than this Word of truth” (St. Thomas).

“O Lord, far from marveling before Your works, they are for me one more reason to praise You. The more these works are difficult to understand, the more they inspire devotion in me, and the more they inspire it, the more difficult they are... Indeed, the more the truths of faith surpass the natural order, the more firmly I believe them, and the more they inspire devotion in me, explaining to me by the principle of Your omnipotence all the wonders You could do, so that on this point I have never had any doubt” (T.G. Vi. 28, 6; 19, 9).

With this living faith, O Lord, I want to seek You and unceasingly adhere to You, even if such faith is “naked” and stripped of every consolation. “Nothing will be able to frighten me, neither wind nor rain; if thick clouds come to hide from me the Star of love, if it seems to me that I believe there is nothing but the night of this life, then it will be the moment of perfect joy, the moment to push my confidence to the farthest limits, taking care not to change place, knowing that beyond these sad clouds my sweet Sun continues to shine” (T.B.G. St. 11).