Lent 2008: Week 5, Day 1
If there is a good book to take along during the lenten journey it would have to be Kathleen Norris' "Amazing Grace," a wonderful look into different words that once frightened and confused the author as a child, but are now words she learns to understand and even embrace.
In a chapter entitled "Belief, Doubt and Sacred Ambiguity," Norris tells of the time she confided in a minister her doubts about certain passages in the Creed, a statement of beliefs recited by Catholics and other liturgical faiths.
"How can I with integrity affirm a creed in which I do not believe?" Norris asked her spiritual director.
The advice returned to her: "You just say it. Particularly when you have trouble believing it. You just keep saying it. It will come to you eventually."
It immediately brought to mind a conversation I had with the late Fr. Tom Kelley. I was having problems believing one of the Catholic faith's central beliefs: the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I told Fr. Tom several years ago that no matter how hard I tried, I could not bring myself to believe in the transubstantiation.
Fr. Tom, one of the wisest men I ever met, said to me, "Perhaps it is good enough, then, if you just try to believe."
I packed that along for my faith journey, realizing that his sentiment applied to not only complicated, not-easily understood mysteries such as the transubstantiation, but pretty much any other aspect of faith that we find hard to believe from time to time.
On those days we can't believe, perhaps just trying is the next best thing.
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