The Rector's Messaged

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Dear friends,

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? This ancient riddle can be applied to the question of faith. Do we need faith in order to understand, or is it the other way around? The 11th century monk and archbishop St. Anselm wrote: “For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand.” St. Anselm wants his faith to serve as the means of understanding God and the world.

St. Anselm directs us to see our faith as informing the whole of our life and purpose; his words can also be applied to the hearing of Scripture. Through faith we open our hearts and minds to the word of God, so that the intellectual and emotional parts of our nature operate in harmony.

In listening to Scripture, faith is a key which unlocks many doors. Faith is also like an inner lamp which casts its light over the words of God and reveals them to be the words of life. More than this, faith is like having several pair of eyes. Return to a passage from the Bible after a period of time away and you might notice something new. You see it, as it were, for the first time.

Years ago when I began to read the Bible, I didn’t really know what faith was. Scripture was like a door on which I knocked, hoping I could enter and understand. It took a long time before faith took root in my life. Strangely enough, a weak faith was no discouragement - not having had it before, I didn’t miss it. Prayer then was something I did instinctively - human beings are made to pray, even if they have only a superficial understanding of God and the world.

Time has been a factor - the older I get, the deeper my faith grows, and the more I understand. Yet there are plenty of examples from history of those whose faith burned brightly from a very young age. St. Anselm had it right. We should pray to God for our faith to increase. That is the path in life which offers the greatest rewards, including understanding (and discipline and compassion and the other virtues).

For the blessings of faith

Father David