By Henrylito D. Tacio
It was raining outside and I had nothing to do. So, I decided to file all the old issues of scattered Reader’s Digest that I owned, neatly inside a cabinet. But I couldn’t help getting a few copies, and quickly scanned the pages. This put me in a good reading mood, thus I started to glance at some of the articles.
One January 2001 feature caught my attention: “Faith is Powerful Medicine.” Is the author – Phyllis McIntosh – writing about faith healing? No, she was talking about religious faith – that heals.
Dr. Dale Matthews, associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, was quoted as saying: “We cannot prove scientifically that God heals, but I believe we can prove that belief in God has a beneficial effect.”
The author said that more than 30 studies have found a connection between spiritual or religious commitment and longer life. Among the most compelling findings:
· A survey of 5,286 Californians found that churchgoers have lower death rates than non-churchgoers – regardless of risk factors such as smoking, drinking, obesity, and inactivity.
· Those with a religious commitment had fewer symptoms or had better health outcomes in seven out of eight cancer studies, four out of five blood-pressure studies, and four out of five general-health studies.
· People with strong religious commitment seem to be less prone to depression, suicide, alcoholism, and other addictions, according to one research analysis.
A person does not need to know how or why faith works. But faith does work! Sir Wilfred Grenfell has this to say: “Why is it that the very term ‘religious life’ has come to voice the popular idea that religion is altogether divorced from ordinary life?
“That conception is the exact opposite of Christ’s teachings,” he continued. “Faith, ‘reason grown courageous,’ as someone has called it, has become an assurance to me now, not because the fight is easy and we are never worsted but because it has made life infinitely worthwhile, so that I want to get all I can out of it, every hour.
“God helps us not to neglect the use of a thing – like faith – because we do not know how it works! It would be a criminal offense if a doctor would not use the X-ray even if he does not know how barium chloride makes Gamma rays visible. We must know that our opinions are not a matter of very great moments, except in so as in what they lead us to do. I see no reason whatsoever to suppose that the Creator lays any stress on them either. Experience answers our problems – experience of faith and common sense. For faith and common sense, taken together, make reasonable service, which ends by giving us the light of life.”
Trust without reservations is faith
Just what is faith, anyway? “Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of evidence,” says Sherwood Eddy. “Faith is daring to do something regardless of the consequences.” Elton Trueblood points out: “Faith not belief without proof, but trust without reservations.”
Let me share an anecdote. It was almost dark when an atheist fell off a steep cliff. Halfway down, he caught onto the single bush growing out of the hillside. He hung on for dear life. He could not possibly get back to the top. A hundred feet below was a heap of rocks.
In desperation, he turned his face toward heaven and shouted, “If there is a God, save me.”
A thunderous voice then replied, “If you really believe in God, let go.”
The atheist looked up, then looked down, and lost his nerve. “Is there anyone else up there?” he screamed.
Leaps of faith
In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote: “There’s a reason we refer to ‘leaps of faith’ – because the decision to consent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don’t care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn’t.
“If faith were rational, it wouldn’t be – by definition – faith,” she further wrote. “Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and at full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be… a prudent insurance policy.”
“The whole course of things goes to teach us faith,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, lecturer, and poet. “We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into you as life, place yourself in the full center of that flood, then you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.”
Faith is a gift
It came to pass that the famous author of The Song of Bernadette, Franz Werfel, gave an enthusiastic graduation talk at Mundelein College for Girls in Chicago, all about the Blessed Virgin Mary. This was all the more remarkable since the students all knew that he was Jew.
During the forum that followed after the speech, one student had the courage to ask the refugee from Nazi persecution, “Mr. Werfel, if I am not getting too personal, could you explain how it is that you seem to know so much about the Catholic Church and its teachings, and still, you are not a Catholic?”
“Yes,” Werfel replied, “I can. Faith is a gift and I have not yet received that gift.”
“Faith,” wrote Max Lucado in He Still Moves Stones: Everyone Needs a Miracle, “is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.” – ###
