Faith

A priest one time had a wedding and was invited to the reception afterward. For once, he actually had time to go to the reception so he accepted the invitation. While there, a guy sat next to him who clearly had a myriad of questions he wanted to ask. He started by asking the priest, “Father, if you could have preached the wedding at Cana, what would you have said?” The priest responded by saying, “Well, that would be tough as Mary actually gave the perfect homily and it would be hard to follow that.” The man asked, “What do you mean?” The priest quoted Mary, “Do whatever He tells you.” The man didn’t ask any more questions after that.

What is actually meant by “faith”? Many people will claim to have faith, saying “I believe in God/Jesus.” But does this mean just simply that we accept that they are real? Does this mean that we believe Jesus is risen? Is that the kind of faith that Paul says saves us, or is there more to it? Mary gives us the answer: “Do whatever he tells you.”

There are three kinds of faith. There is faith that God exists, but even the devil has this kind of faith, so we know that that is not it. There is faith that God has spoken, that the Bible is God’s Word to us; but again, even the devil can quote Scripture. True faith is about trusting in God, accepting and following what He has said, obeying His commands and walking in His ways. It is truly trusting in Him such that we give ourselves to Him, following His every commandment. May we heed the call from Deuteronomy today and turn to God with all our heart and soul and follow in His ways!