Sun chat: The Light of Faith. Pope Francis new encyclical and St Francis de Sales on the light of faith
Sister Susan Marie: In our Living Jesus Chat Room this Sunday, we will discuss these points: Both the Holy Father and St. Francis use vivid images of light to describe faith. How does the Pope update this train of thought today? How does St. Francis use the metaphors of the blind man and ploughman to illustrate the difference between knowing about the faith and experiencing it? The blind man has knowledge, but what does the ploughman, who sees, have? What does St. Francis compare the waves of the ocean to? Doe
Sister Susan Marie: Does the ploughman’s experience ring true in your life? Or, rather, the blind man’s?
Can we help others see the light?
Guest470SME (guest): Good evening. Thank you for having this so soon after Our Holy Father wrote the encyclical. SEM
Sister Susan Marie: Thanks for coming! Maybe folks have not digested the encyclical yet but I thought it would be good to start them thinking
Sister Susan Marie: And myself included
Guest470SME (guest): It’s truly beautiful and very timely. Francis has so much to offer,
Sister Susan Marie: The earlier portion of it enabled me to grasp the difficulties some have with faith
Guest470SME (guest): I have kept reading the beginning part over a few times
Sister Susan Marie: and the thinking- like Nietche-can’t spell it- telling his daughter that seekers can’t find truth in faith. Where did he get that idea?
Sister Susan Marie: The Benedictines- for one- always emphasize the seeking- of God- His face
Guest470SME (guest): Do you think it (seeking without faith) is the idea that if you can’t touch it, feel it, see it, then it is not real?
Sister Susan Marie: Yes I think that’s surely a part of it- and the Holy Father talks about that somewhere in the encyclical
Sister Susan Marie: for ex:In contemporary culture, we often tend to consider the only real truth to be that of technology: truth is what we succeed in building and measuring by our scientific know-how, truth is what works and what makes life easier and more comfortable. Nowadays this appears as the only truth that is certain, the only truth that can be shared, the only truth that can serve as a basis for discussion or for common undertakings.
Guest470SME (guest): I can see how our sophistication as a society looks upon the past a simplistic.
Guest470SME (guest): I often wonder how it was for Abraham… to encounter God …
Sister Susan Marie: If it’s old or from the past, it no longer counts. But the Holy Father says something to the effect that even language is old, passed down, or how would we even speak?
Guest470SME (guest): I often wonder how it was for Abraham… to encounter God …
Sister Susan Marie: Abraham was amazing!
Guest470SME (guest): He took a chance.
Sister Susan Marie: The Lord called and he says’ Here I am!” without a pause
Guest470SME (guest): Do you think it was more common for the ancients to be more open to the voices of their inner hearts speaking and truly believe…
Guest470SME (guest): Yes, to say “Here I am!” amazing…
Sister Susan Marie: In a way, yes, because there was less collective sin in the world, being an earlier age.
Guest470SME (guest): That’s true… more innocence, greater purity of sorts.
Jul 7 2013, 7:38 PM
Sister Susan Marie: So maybe their hearts were closer to God and truth
Jul 7 2013, 7:38 PM
Guest470SME (guest): Like a child who is open to the wonder of what you tell them. Why should they doubt?
Jul 7 2013, 7:38 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Yet on the other hand, Christ has come and redeemed us and that should have opened our hearts and ears, in this world
Guest470SME (guest): Like a child who is open to the wonder of what you tell them. Why should they doubt?
Guest470SME (guest): I think that’s what the early martyrs displayed in their willingness to die for Jesus.
Jul 7 2013, 7:39 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Yes the innocence of children and their wonder is real and we need to move back towards that state
Sister Susan Marie: Do you mean the martyrs were open to the voice of God?
Guest470SME (guest): I think I mean that because they believed they trusted in what Jesus told them and would not deny the truth of what He taught through those who helped them to come to know Jesus.
Jul 7 2013, 7:41 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Ah.. yes.. and they encountered Christ on some level, either directly, or thru hearing the message from others, and faith does come thru hearing
Jul 7 2013, 7:41 PM
Guest470SME (guest): They were willing to lay down their life for what they believe about Jesus. Like St. Justin Martyr said, “No one has ever been redy to die for his faith in the sun!”
Sister Susan Marie: So true!!
Guest470SME (guest): Getting back to Nietzsche, I think he was confusing passivity with peace and action with seeking.
Guest470SME (guest): Sometimes if a person is content with not wanting to rock the boat they are at “peace”
Sister Susan Marie: Hmmn..that’s a good insight. I knew immediately he was off the track in an obvious way but could not express it as you just did
Sister Susan Marie: Yes- what is true peace?
Sister Susan Marie: Jesus rocked a few boats- but He’s the One who gives true peace
Guest470SME (guest): … you can be at peace and seek adventure. Seeking deeper knowledge can give peace which is often a deeper relationship with Jesus
Guest470SME (guest): What is peace? Good question…
Guest470SME (guest): Is it satisfaction in what one knows?
Jul 7 2013, 7:46 PM
Guest470SME (guest): Or is it a type of resting in assurance of what one knows?
Sister Susan Marie: Somewhat but more than that I think peace is essentially a person living within us- Jesus
Guest470SME (guest): That’s right. He did say I am Peace…
Guest470SME (guest): I am the peace that the world cannot give…
Guest470SME (guest): It makes me think of the original questions or examples you presented. The ploughman and the philosopher (?)
Sister Susan Marie: I think where Pope Francis and our St Francis meet is in the relationship expressed between faith and love
Guest470SME (guest): One knows intellectually, the other know intimately. One who breathes and moves with the land he is ploughing…
Guest470SME (guest): And St. Paul says that too: there are three things, Faith, Hope and Love and the greatest of these is Love. The love will last forever.
Jul 7 2013, 7:50 PM
Sister Susan Marie: One experiences, the other knows
Jul 7 2013, 7:51 PM
Guest470SME (guest): There’s some type of saying about that… you know…something…. but I know the … Person… can’t get it together.
Jul 7 2013, 7:51 PM
Sister Susan Marie: We begin our love by the knowledge which faith gives us of God’s goodness, which afterwards we relish and taste by love; love whets our taste and our taste heightens our love, (St Francis)
Jul 7 2013, 7:52 PM
Guest470SME (guest): And to think that all this is GIFT given by the Holy Spirit.
Jul 7 2013, 7:52 PM
Sister Susan Marie: And we are blessed to have received that gift!
Jul 7 2013, 7:53 PM
Guest470SME (guest): When I read the ency. I seem to just get through a line or two and than have to stop. We are so gifted by our Church.
Jul 7 2013, 7:53 PM
Sister Susan Marie: It is very deep yet enlightening; I need to meditate one paragraph at a time!
Jul 7 2013, 7:54 PM
Sister Susan Marie: I like this paragraph:Nor is the light of faith, joined to the truth of love, extraneous to the material world, for love is always lived out in body and spirit; the light of faith is an incarnate light radiating from the luminous life of Jesus. It also illumines the material world, trusts its inherent order and knows that it calls us to an ever widening path of harmony and understanding.
:54 PM
Guest470SME (guest): I think that it is wonderful how the Pope progresses from the beginning of Salvation History and moves along. I love the thoughts on Moses as the first ‘mediator’ …
Jul 7 2013, 7:55 PM
Guest470SME (guest): We are in darkness because of sin, as I look at your reply above and the quote… God is so good to us to send us the light of Jesus. Jesus is our Light in this dark world.
Jul 7 2013, 7:55 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Now I missed that- meaning I did not pick it up- I will review that!