“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.”

The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid. --G.K. Chesterton: 1874 – 1936: was an English writer, poet, philosopher, and lay theologian)

Gospel Text: (JN 14:6-14)

Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

If you know me, then you will also know my Father.

From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him,

“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time

and you still do not know me, Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.

The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,

or else, believe because of the works themselves.

Amen, amen, I say to you,

whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,

and will do greater ones than these,

because I am going to the Father.

And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,

so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” “That will be enough for us”?  Probably not.

We humans never seem to have enough certainty and trusting deeply in God is a lifelong process.

We know that faith is not mere belief. Faith is when we submit our intellect and will to God, who has revealed himself to us through Scripture and tradition. It involves both our minds and our lives. Because of this, faith is not the absence of a struggle. The life of faith is by its very nature a battle to place our entire selves under Christ’s lordship. If you struggle to do this, it is not failure, it is engaging the call.

When it comes to doubt, this can involve full knowledge and full consent of the will. It is saying, “I know what the Church teaches, and I know why the Church teaches this. I refuse to submit to it.

That may be you.

We have to be a person who is not content with difficulties or anxieties. We may say things like “I struggle with some teachings of the Church”. It is one thing to struggle to know and love God and something quite different to have “difficulties” and not care to resolve them. That attitude can often lead to a spiritual blindness and an inability to hear God when He speaks. There is very little that God can do with the “cool” and indifferent.

Even if people have a difficult time with faith, if they struggle to seek after and follow God, they are light years ahead of the one who does not believe or worst does not care. If we seek, knock and ask, we have Jesus’ word: We will find.