What is 'belief'? - 3rd Monday of Easter

Monday, April 27th, 2020

Belief. What is belief? This is the question examined in today’s Gospel. Then they said to him, ‘What must we do if we are to do the works that God wants?’ Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent.’

We hear this expression often: I believe in God. The problem with this statement is: so what do you mean by that? Because the statement is so broad it is almost meaningless. It can mean you believe God exists in some form - but not that our daily life actually has anything to do with him. It can mean a person is part of virtually any religion in the world. And even this verb ‘believe’ can have all kinds of meanings. For many, it simply means that part of our understanding of the universe is that there is a God, and that I will continue in spirit after my death.

This is not what Jesus means when he uses the word believe. As the Compendium to the Catechism reminds us, by belief, Jesus means Sustained by divine grace, we respond to God with the obedience of faith, which means the full surrender of ourselves to God and the acceptance of his truth insofar as it is guaranteed by the One who is Truth itself. (No. 25) This is belief: to surrender our lives and intelligence totally to God who is Truth itself: to build our lives around what he reveals to us.

Let us pray:

"Grant, we pray, almighty God,

that, putting off our old self with all its ways,

we may live as Christ did,

for through the healing paschal remedies

you have conformed us to his nature.

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever."