Faith by Father Ian Maher

Faith

by Father Ian Maher

Looking back on the time when I became a Christian, as a young man of 20, one thing more than anything else moved me from unbelief to faith. It wasn’t a sermon, or a book, or any formal teaching, but the example of a life.

My parish priest, with infinite patience, listened to me rant and rage about how there could not possibly be God in a world full of suffering. He soaked it all up over a period of months, never once belittling me or making me feel that any questions or doubts expressed were out of bounds.

More than 40 years on, I cannot remember anything in particular that he said to me, but I do remember this very clearly: there was something about him, a quality to his life, a faith which was a lens through which he saw, understood and interpreted the world.

That was something I wanted for myself, and the penny eventually dropped. I knew in my heart that Christ had risen from the dead and, since then, my life

has been and remains an ongoing journey of discovering what this means for me and for how I live my life.

That’s a little bit of my own ‘faith story’ with which you may, or may not, identify. There is a saying that faith is caught, not taught, and I agree that trying to argue a person into faith is both futile and contradictory.

Faith, for me, is about venturing onto a path well trodden by countless others before me who have found, for them, a way through life that offers a different frame of reference from which to face all that comes our way. My first parish priest was such a man for me.

In Luke’s gospel (10.21-24) there is a short section where Jesus rejoices that faith in God is not dependent on intelligence, or qualifications, or formal learning – important though such things are in life – but is, rather, available to infants.

Jesus’ reference here is to the openness, wonder, and trust that infants have in relation to a world beyond their ability to comprehend. But he is not speaking only about children.

Just as a child experiencing the world around them will not be able to explain everything, none of us can ever explain the mystery of God who will always be beyond us, but we can experience the reality of that God.

That is where the borderland of faith is to be found: where our learning takes us only so far in understanding the purpose and meaning of our existence, and something stirs within us that there is more to life than we realise.

Authentic faith changes people and their lives then changes others. That is what I saw in my first parish priest, and the witness of his life is what brought me into a faith of my own. I hope and pray that my faith is, in turn, of help to others on their own journey.

As I said above, faith is not something that anyone can be argued or forced into, nor should they be. But it does open us up to the reality and experience of God’s love for us, and for the whole universe.

The signs are all around us in the lives of people through whom faith shines if only we have the eyes to see. So let’s be encouraged by their example in our own walk of faith and, and take the next step on the journey.

I am a priest and minor canon at Sheffield Cathedral. My last post prior to retirement from stipendiary ministry was as the Multifaith Chaplaincy Co-

ordinator and Anglican Chaplain at Sheffield Hallam University, where I worked for 12 years. https://imaherblog.wordpress.com/ Twitter @IanMaher7