DAILY MEDITATION (THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24)

MEDITATION OF THE DAY

Ears and Eyes of Faith

To believe is both to hear and to see. Faith’s hearing emerges as a form of knowing proper to love: it is a personal hearing, one which recognizes the voice of the Good Shepherd; it is a hearing which calls for discipleship, as was the case with the first disciples: Hearing him say these things, they followed Jesus (Jn 1:37). But faith is also tied to sight. Seeing the signs which Jesus worked leads at times to faith, as in the case of the Jews who, following the raising of Lazarus, having seen what he did, believed in him (Jn 11:45). At other times, faith itself leads to deeper vision: If you believe, you will see the glory of God (Jn 11:40). In the end, belief and sight intersect: Whoever believes in me believes in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me (Jn 12:44-45). Joined to hearing, seeing then becomes a form of following Christ, and faith appears as a process of gazing, in which our eyes grow accustomed to peering into the depths….

How does one attain this synthesis between hearing and seeing? It becomes possible through the person of Christ himself, who can be seen and heard. He is the Word made flesh, whose glory we have seen (cf. Jn 1:14). The light of faith is the light of a countenance in which the Father is seen…. The truth which faith attains is the revelation of the Father in the Son, in his flesh and in his earthly deeds, a truth which can be defined as the “light-filled life” of Jesus. This means that faith-knowledge does not direct our gaze to a purely inward truth. The truth which faith discloses to us is a truth centered on an encounter with Christ, on the contemplation of his life and on the awareness of his presence.

Pope Francis

His Holiness Pope Francis was elected to the See of Saint Peter in 2013. [From The Light of Faith: Lumen Fidei: Encyclical Letter. Used with permission of the Libreria Editrice Vaticana. www.vatican.va.]