Faith

At the RCIA weekly meets, we have commenced discussion on catholicism. The first topic was centred on faith.

Faith, as defined in the dictionary, means having confidence in someone, or in the context of religion, having confidence in God. An example of faith was Abraham obeying God's command to offer his only son Issac as a sacrifice. I felt quite disturbed with this example. It is a bit hard to appreciate that as an example of faith in today's context.

I am always moved by great faith. In the movie "The Ten Commandments", stopped in their escape by the Red Sea, and with an army of Egyptian warriors in hot pursuit, the Jews were cowered in fears. Moses (played by Charlton Heston) pronounced, majestically, "Ten times you have witnessed the power of God, and yet you still have no faith" This is of course after God had, through Moses, turned the Nile red and taken the first borns of Egyptians as a show of divine authority to the unbelieving Egyptian Pharoah.

I must say that it was folly of the highest order for those Jews to still not have faith in God after such display of supernatural authority.

During our discussion time at the RCIA, I was asked a direct question on what I thought of God, and my faith relationship with Him. I got the impression, I may be wrong here, that my catholic friends do not think that faith can be directed towards a non-God focus. So, I told them, I have faith too. I pray too. However, I have some difficulties identifying my focus of faith on a one God.

I am beginning to think that the myriad of questions that I have about Christianity and Catholicism will never be fully answered. This is not surprising at all. Faith itself means believing without the need for reasoning and convincing.

While chatting with Fr Philip last week, he told us jokingly not to ask Daniel too many difficult questions, as Daniel might become confused and fail his theology examination. Daniel is a resident seminarian at our church. He is a leader of our RCIA group, he will be ordained as a full priest later this year after he passes his final theology examination. Daniel quickly added that luckily for him, his examination comes up on Monday 14th June, whereas we only get the opportunity to ask him questions on next Thursday 17th June. So no matter what we ask, it is not going to affect his performance at the examination.

I am different from Catholics who are born as Catholics and who have never an opportunity nor the spiritual need to explore outside their faith. I have questions which they never ask. I can't stop myself from asking questions.

I look forward to a better discussion with my friend Daniel.