“Faith is the lighted torch of our soul” reminds our founder. In this month, which begins with the Feast of the Presentation, “the feast of the Light”, could we not, symbolically, each morning rekindle the blessed candle received that day and ask Jesus to maintain in us the spark of the faith ?
The Spirit of Faith
Faith is the basis and foundation of our religion; it is also the alignment of all solidly Christian life: “My righteous life of faith, says the Lord” (Romans 1:17). Faith is also this great Christian sense which elevates us to a supernatural order, makes us envisage persons and things as God sees them and judges Himself. Faith is that divine torch lit in our soul on the day of our baptism, and in the light of which we must walk. Three magnificent lights are offered to us by Providence to accomplish our destinies: the star, king of the day that illuminates our bodies; The reason that illuminates our intelligence; The faith that floods our soul with its light. Just as we are deprived of the rays of the sun, our footsteps are chained in the region of the shadows and, stripped of our reason, we are rejected from our fellow men; Dispossessed of the torch of the Faith, our soul is sadly blind and incapable of knowing and serving its own interests.
Nowadays, few Christians really live this beautiful life of Faith! Increasingly, the splendors of the divine sun are darkening in the world; Nothing is surprising as society staggers and runs to the abyss as it is struck with spiritual blindness.
By asking God every day to increase faith in us and to appreciate its inestimable value, we would avoid this misfortune. What a profound difference exists between the sure Christian of the Faith and the man who is guided only by the light of his reason! The former looks upwards, submits to Providence, and keeps the peace, while the second becomes angry, attacks secondary causes, and only becomes embittered. A soul inspired and anchored in the Faith knows that in the smallest or the greatest events is hidden the paternal hand of God who disposes of all things for the good of his elect.
This beautiful life of Faith brings us already into the divine realities: they illuminate everything, explain everything, console everything, sanctify everything! Animated with the spirit of Faith, our acts become meritorious. Think, let us speak, let us act under the empire of Faith, whereby we will be true Christians, faithful disciples of the Heart of Jesus, and work effectively at our perfection. (Sr Marie of the Sacred Heart Bernaud)