At
the beginning of our second reading today, from the Letter to the Hebrews, we
heard: “Faith
is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.
Because of it the ancients were well attested.” ¿Well attested? Well ain’t that nice. The ancients were well attested. What does that mean? I am sure the ancients were very happy about
being well attested, but it doesn’t mean much in plain English.
Excuse
me, but I have to stop here for a couple of minutes and do some moaning and
groaning. You see I think the
translation of our second reading is – to put it mildly – poor. Our reading comes from the Revised New
American Bible. When in 1986 it was revised
it did not get any better in my humble opinion. In the old, Unrevised New American Bible,
the opening of our second reading reads,
“Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about
things we do not see. Because of faith
the men of old were approved by God.”
So “well attested” means
“approved by God.”
And
faith is not “the realization of what is
hoped for”. If what is hoped for is
realized than there is no need for faith, because it is realized. You have
it. Much better (to me) is the older
translation, “Faith is confident
assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not
see.”
As an aside, later in our reading
we heard, “By faith Abraham received power to generate, even though he was past the
normal age —and Sarah herself was sterile— for he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.”
Interestingly,
in the old translation the verse was not about Abraham’s faith but about
Sarah’s. It read “By faith Sarah received power to conceive through she was past the
age, for she thought that the One who had made the promise was worthy of
trust.” The faith being held up as
an example for us to follow in verse 11 is not Abraham’s, but Sarah’s. Somehow in the revision credit got taken away
from Sarah and given to Abraham. The
Catholic Scripture scholar, Myles Bourke, in the prestigious Jerome Biblical
Commentary states: “The mention of Sarah
is surprising” He goes on: “… The attempts to read a different
meaning into the Greek in order to avoid the difficulty this verse presents (i.e.,
by holding up Sarah as an exemplar of faith)
are of doubtful merit.” Yet so the
revised version has it, revising poor Sarah out of the examplars of faith.
This
is especially ironic since from very early times scholars have known that this
Letter to the Hebrews was not written by St. Paul. It is inspired Scripture, but not the work of
St. Paul. One of the favorite contenders
among scholars for the title of author of the Letter to the Hebrews is St. Priscilla. St. Paul praises her in the Letter to the
Romans, and St. Luke mentions her in the Acts of the Apostles. She was the wife of St. Aquila. They were an early missionary couple and
co-workers with St. Paul. So this may be
one of the few books of the Bible written by a woman. But we don’t know for certain. Origen, an early 3rd Century
theologian wrote: “'But as to who wrote the epistle, only
God knows the truth.' So there you have it.
But I
digress. “Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and
conviction about things we do not see.
Because of faith the men of old were approved by God.” All of us are called to have faith. We are called to live by faith. By faith we will be saved. So Faith is of crucial importance. And what is faith? “Faith
is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things
we do not see.”
Confident
assurance of what we hope for. We hope
for a great deal: salvation from all the pain, heartache, disappointment and
discouragement of this world, radical freedom from sin and from death, and in
its place7 the fullness of life, eternal life,
I don’t think we could hope for any more.
So
if faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, where does this
confidence come from? If we are not just
looking at life through rose colored glasses, and faith is not just an exercise
in wishful thinking, where does this confident assurance come from?
Well,
first of all, it is not scientific proof, nor mathematical certainty, nor a
firm logical deduction. None of those
are faith. And faith is much more than
any intellectual certainty, or conviction about certain dogmas or creeds. The faith that gives life is rather something
much more personal and relational.
Because the confidence does not come from us, but rather from our
relationship with Jesus. Faith is always
faith in Jesus, and it is a relationship with Him. Only by knowing and encountering Him do we
come to the faith that saves.
We
have faith that Jesus, Who gave Himself totally and completely for us, holding
absolutely nothing back, is both able to save us and badly wanting to do so. Our confidence comes from knowing Him, and His
unshakable commitment to us. That is
what the cross is all about.
We
have confident assurance concerning what
we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see. We do not see the Risen Lord the way Mary
Magdalene and Peter did. We do not see
the Risen Lord the way St. Paul did. But
we are convinced that Jesus is Risen. We
experience His Body in the Church gathered, and in His Word in the Gospel
proclaimed, and in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood which we receive. In these and other ways we encounter and
experience Jesus’ care, compassion, forgiveness, His tenderness, His challenge,
His strength, His hope, His love. And
because we experience Jesus’ presence in this way, we come to believe that He
is Risen. We have “conviction about things we do not see.”
And so we have faith.
Faith,
for most of us, waxes and wanes. It grows,
it shrinks. Sometimes we misplace
it. We may seem to lose it for a
while. We continually need to go back to
Jesus, to encounter Him, and grow in faith.
Faith is a wonderful, wonderful gift.
It is a gift Jesus gives to us through the Holy Spirit. Pray and ask for faith. “Faith
is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things
we do not see.”
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