In June of 2013 Pope Francis was visiting some Jesuit-run schools in Italy and Albania when one of the boys asked him about how he could overcome doubts he had regarding his faith.
Pope Francis responded by speaking about walking: He said, "Walking is an art; if we are always in a hurry we tire and cannot reach our destination ... Yet if we stop and do not move, we also fail to reach [it] ...Walking is ... thinking about where I want to go, and also coping with the weariness that comes from walking. ...The way is often hard-going; it is not easy. ... there are days of darkness, days of failure, and some days of falling ... In the art of walking it is not falling that matters, but not 'staying fallen.' Get up quickly, immediately, and continue to go on. And this is beautiful: it is working every day, it is walking humanly. But also: it is terrible to walk alone, terrible and tedious. Walking in community, with friends, with those who love us: this helps us, it helps us to arrive precisely at the destination where we must arrive." (Our Sunday Visitor, July 6, 2014 - p 11 "Pope Francis on Doubt.)
Looking at his reply to this young boy, the next question is: How is our faith like walking?
* We must not tire in our faith.
* We must not stop trying to believe.
* We must remember to think about our destination (heaven/relationship with Jesus/eternity with God).
* We must remember that we will have days of darkness, doubts, failure, and falling.
* We must get up after we fall.
* We must get up quickly.
* We must get up immediately.
* We must work at it every day.
* We must join a community which helps us with our faith journey.
In these ways we can overcome our doubts and build our faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment