GOD granting the Grace of FAITH

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Maryam

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Excuse my ramblings… I have just been going over in my mind just how one can have Faith. Is Faith a grace that is given to us by God?

Is Faith dependent on grace only? I know Christ said that even if one were to have faith as small as a mustard seed we could say to a mountain move… but, how do we plant that seed in our souls in the first place?

In my readings of the writings of the Saints on reaching a closer union with God… I lean more towards the methods used by Brother Lawrence (seeking God’s presence in every moment and in every action through love for HIM), St. Therese of Lisieux’s “Little Way” (making little sacrifices every day) and the Orthodox way of ceaseless prayer through the “Prayer of the Heart”.

These seem to speak to my heart more than other more complex methods… I just can’t imagine myself measuring my spiritual progress according to what level or mansion I am at, such as in St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle. (no disrespect intended)

Ok, I am getting off track…

I read somewhere that just the simple “DESIRE” to want a closer relationship with God daily is often overlooked as the beginnings of the journey towards union with God. I mean… you may not have a daily prayer or devotional life yet, but, are more into **reading spiritual literature and think daily of God’s place in your life. **

Are these daily “desires” for more of a closeness with God the beginnings of Faith?

How does one know when one has FAITH? Is Faith a grace or something one obtains through diligent effort over time?

I know my thoughts and questions are a mess… but, anyways… comments appreciated.

God bless all
 
In John 6, (I think), Jesus says, “No one comes to me but through the Father”. Or something about being called by the Father to him. This is grace.

One does not recieve faith, then but through the very grace of God. We are all alive through the grace of God…all in this world is at God’s grace, as is your faith.

If you believe in the Lord, that is faith…and given to you by God’s grace. It is a gift. We are called to cultivate it. We have the gift of free will, to either accept or reject the grace of God and the gifts he gives us through his grace.

So you ask if you have faith…in return, I ask you:

Do you believe in God, the father almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth?

Do you believe in his only son, Jesus Christ, our Lord?

Do you believe Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontias Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried?

Do you believe that he descended into Hell, then rose again and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, the Almighty and will come to judge the living and the dead?

Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting?

If so, then my friend, you have faith…and that was a gift freely given to you by our Father through his very grace.

THAT is how you know you have faith.

Do not fear…God is not the Lord of fear and confusion,but the God of LOVE.

Read 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.

Peace be with you
 
JCPhoenix… thanks for your post.

I understand completely your points, but, in my mind one can know what the truth is (that Jesus Christ as the Son of God, that he lived, died and rose from the dead… etc) and still not have true Faith.

There are many who even in knowing this will still be calling out “Lord, Lord” and Jesus will not know them.

I don’t believe that ** true Faith ** is so easily obtained (not that you wrote it is easy…before I get into trouble… just my viewpoint).

I think true Faith is not easily obtainable, for if it was Jesus would not have given the example of having faith even as small as a Mustard Seed.

I can have the understanding and believe in that Christ lived and died for us to give to all of humanity Salvation…but, a living true Faith to me takes more than just belief…

Christ knows all of our hearts and whether our Faith is alive or dead as stone in our hearts. How many people have the kind of Faith that is ** ALIVE ** in their hearts? I don’t think it is enough to say I believe, for as John the Baptist said that even if you say that we are the children of Abraham and that is enough to save us, it is not enough in reality… For God could make any of the stones children of Abraham.

Do you understand where I am coming from now?

God bless all
 
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Maryam:
How does one know when one has FAITH? Is Faith a grace or something one obtains through diligent effort over time?
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Dear Maryam,

Maybe the answer to your question is both? Maybe God plants faith, the size of a mustard seed, in each of us, then He sits back and watches it grow in us, by our efforts to reach toward Him?

When we try to please God and love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, He hears our hearts desire and responds with added grace/faith? If we turn our backs on Him and try to gain good through our own merit, we fail miserably because our attempt is not to please God, but ourselves?

We know we have faith when we are able to trust in God’s grace to sustain us and bring us closer to Him.

Faith is the grace God grants us to live, love, learn and grow in Him.

My wonderfriend Suzanne says, “Our desire is enough; the rest is His grace.” I believe His mercy has a lot to do with it too.

God question Maryam.

Peace to you,
Elizabeth
 
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Maryam:
Christ knows all of our hearts and whether our Faith is alive or dead as stone in our hearts. How many people have the kind of Faith that is **ALIVE **in their hearts? I don’t think it is enough to say I believe, for as John the Baptist said that even if you say that we are the children of Abraham and that is enough to save us, it is not enough in reality… For God could make any of the stones children of Abraham.

Do you understand where I am coming from now?

God bless all
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Dear Maryam,

I agree with you. When I was little, I believe I had great faith, hope and love but I didn’t know where it came from. Something happened, between age 5-10, that distorted my relationship with God. I turned from Him. My heart became hardened, against Him.

This happened partly becuase I trusted mankind to guide me to God, but it didn’t, secularism and self-seeking individuals helped to guide me away. Also believe there were demonic forces at work within me. For a long time I trusted only myself but I was as corrupt at all the rest of humanity and fell farther and farther from God.

Somewhere, deep inside though, my spirit knew God was God and I wasn’t. One very dark and lonely night I was able to cry out, in desperation, “Jesus! HELP ME!” It was in that moment God restored me to Himself. God ran to rescue me.

I believe The Blessed Mother had a great deal to do with my rescue. Even when I was farthest away, there was always an awareness of her presense, in my life.

To me the answer to your question is, “Both. God plants the seed. We help it grow by reaching to God for its nourishment and sustentation.”

Peace to you,
Elizabeth
 
I understand what you are saying.

God gives us faith as a free gift…but we have to decide what to do with it.

Faith is an act of the will. You can hear and understand the Word, but then God leaves it to you…do you accept it? If you choose not to, then you are disregarding the gift you have been given. By turning away, you are showing you do not have faith. But on the other hand if you take up this cross, as it were, and try to live the gospel and you choose to believe it is true, then you have faith and you are living faith.

One cannot move forward in faith without taking it up and walking with Christ, thus the “mustard seed” referred to above is yours to accept or reject with the free will God gave you.
 
Dear friend

Intellectual faith is not the same as faith in the heart and the longest journey in faith a person will ever make is that distance less than a foot, from the head to the heart, once faith has travelled from the head to the heart, that is when the miracles begin to happen.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
** Elizabeth**, thanks for your reply. I love your friends quote about our DESIRE being enough and the rest being God’s grace.

For myself… I have alot of desire, but, I just doubt my worthiness alot in that I feel I fall short in Faith and trust in God. It’s not that I don’t have Faith, just am not satisfied with my prayer life and may be going through a dry spell now… causing me to question alot.

The Blessed Mother indeed is of a great help to me as well… I have a great devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help and often when I feel I am far away from her Son, I ask her to help guide me closer to him.

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** JCPhoenix ** True… one can choose through free will to accept or reject…to take God’s teachings and let it grow and flourish or deny it and let it fall on rocky ground to be devoured by the weeds.

Carrying crosses is something I don’t believe I have done in my faith. I mean I have all the regular problems we all go through, but, to me truly carrying that cross means leaving all for Christ… or maybe I am being a bit too much in these thoughts…

Thanks for understanding

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** littlemary ** Your comment is good food for thought.

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Teresa… and your name does you great justice… Carmelite heart of yours jumps out. 🙂 It is true that once faith goes from head to heart things change miraculously.

Brother Lawrence and the “Prayer of the heart” show just that.

God bless all and thanks for the replies.
 
I think for faith, as for anything through prayer, St. Augustine’s adivce is helpful in that we should pray as if everything depended on God and work as if every thing depended on us.

In terms of working on faith, reading works by others who have been role models of great faith has helped me immensely, particularly during difficult times.

Classics that have helped me have been The Dialouge by Catherine of Siena, the autobiographies of Teresa of Avial and Therese of Lisieux. Alfonso Liguori’s Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life.

More modern works have been Miracles do Happen by Briege McKenna, A Father who Keeps his Promises by Scott Hahn, The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day, Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed, Those who Saw Her by Catherine Odell, 101 Inspirational Stories of the Rosary by Patricia Proctor,* Fatima, In Lucia’s Own Words* by Lucia Santos, Padre Pio the Stigmatist by Charles Mortimer Carty, and Memory and Identity by Pope John Paul II.
 
** serendipity ** …We seem to have the same taste in books. Some of the last titles such as Dorothy Day’s I had never heard of before, so I might check out my local library for it.

Thanks and God bless
 
I liked Dorothy Day’s book a lot. I am still working on it. I felt that the first 70 pages were kind of slow, and I am not so sure I would have made it through them if I did not know much about her life and the work she did.

When go through rough patches with faith, it helps me to read about people like her and Thomas Merton who had no religious upbringing, and even went through atheism but gradully felt pulled to God and Catholicism. I feel so inspired by the glimpses they write of God peeping through to them, though they did not recognize it at the time. It’s almost like a good fight movie…you know how it will end, but the path is so fascinating. I would like to say that if I were raised without a faith, that somehow I would discover the truths of Catholicism, but I don’t know if I’d find that kind of amazing grace.

The other extreme of the books that help me with my faith, and I must sound so childish for saying this, are the flagrant miracle type stories. Like the book about Padre Pio, Patricia Proctor’s book about the rosary, books about apparitions, and Briege McKenna’s book. If I have a really bad day, I like to read bits form something like that. Or watch a show about Fatima on EWTN.

If it’s faith with a paritcular teaching of the church, then it helps to read something more apologetics based, but logic does not always stir fires within me. With the excpetion, perhaps of anything by Frank Sheed.
 
** serendipity ** I can relate about needing to read about the lives of saints or apologetics to help ones faith.

I LOVED the “101 Rosary…” book, especially the story of the 17 year old delinquent who hugged a member of a gang and said the he could not stop him from loving him… Made me tear up.

Somewhere I read that if at times it is hard to read scripture or pray that it could be ones soul is too full spiritually… That even too much reading or praying can wear on the soul and it needs a break.

I tend to agree because there will times where I cannot wrap my brain or soul around the Bible at times… I will leave it and go back a few days later to it.

Thanks for the post.

God bless all
 
Great thread Maryam.
You have helped me in my daily prayer so much by introducing me to the online Rosary through EWTN.
Everyday I say the Rosary at 11pm.
It was a great gift given to me by you.
That is my faith working.
When I began the journey to increase my faith in God I asked him everyday to help me deepen it and not to stray, to stay on the right path.
You gave me the tools to get closer to Jesus through Mary with the online recitation. That was God working through others to help me. It is what I was praying for and I still pray to deepen my faith.

I understand the questions you ask above. I have felt the same way, just doing lip service, saying prayers and walking away-too much of a routine.
I feel closest to God when I am at church in his home. I could spend all day in church, there is so much peace there. Spend some time at your local church or shrine. You will feel a bit of serenity when you leave. Ask for God to help you increase your faith. I’m sure he will put people in your life that will help you on your journey.

God Bless!

Joe
 
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