How can we strengthen our faith and persevere in it?
Catechism Meditation:
Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: “Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.” To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; it must be “working through charity,” abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church.” ―No. 162
REFLECTION: Faith is the theological virtue, infused by God, by which we firmly assent to all the truths that God has revealed to mankind because God cannot deceive or be deceived. Faith is the foundation of all justification, the beginning of all supernatural virtue, the starting point of sanctification and perfection. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” While faith is infused as a free gift by God it nevertheless is given in strict accordance with the nature of man, and after it has been given it requires intelligent cooperation lest it be weakened or lost. This cooperation means three things:
- Every Catholic must pray for the preservation and increase of his faith. Ordinarily, prayer is necessary for the attainment of any grace from God; since faith is the greatest grace, one who has received it must pray throughout life for perseverance and strengthening in his faith.
- Every Catholic must strive to be faithful to the obligations imposed through faith. To offend God deliberately and repeatedly is to run the risk of some day finding that faith has been lost through failure to cooperate with God’s grace.
- Every Catholic must use his mind both to understand the motives for believing God’s word, which are perfectly satisfactory to human reason, and to know the truths revealed by faith, in which nothing contradictory, nothing inconsistent, nothing intellectually incredible is to be found. On the negative side, this means that every Catholic is bound to preserve himself, in so far as possible, from every influence that would prove dangerous to his faith.
We can lose our faith by doing evil. As St. Paul puts it, “By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith” (1 Tim 1:18-19). By conscience, St. Paul means “a good conscience.” Therefore all sins against faith center about either the denial of one’s faith, or the neglect of means to preserve and increase it, or the deliberate entrance into occasions that might destroy it. We can guard our faith and help it grow by constant prayerful reading of the Sacred Scriptures; by asking God to increase our faith; by doing good for others; by making acts of hope rather than giving into sadness; and by holding to all the doctrines of faith and morals that the Church teaches.
PRAYER. Holy Father, we come before You with humble hearts, seeking an increase in our faith. Strengthen our belief and trust in Your promises. Fill us with Your Spirit, that we may walk boldly in faith, relying on You always.
Timeless Wisdom Quote:
“Faith is not believing that something will happen, nor is it the acceptance of what is contrary to reason, nor is it an intellectual recognition which a man might give to something he does not understand or which his reason cannot prove, e.g. relativity. Faith is the acceptance of a truth on the authority of God revealing.” ― Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen