Incurable Faith

 “Tell me, Father, why is there so much pain and darkness in my soul?”  – Mother Teresa

This week -- even as men and women of faith across the world observe Passover, Holy Week, and Easter -- our lives are shadowed by peril. For some of us, the peril is quite personal – illness, disability, dementia, joblessness, and economic hardship.  And all around us, natural and man-made peril scars our landscape – earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, war, terrorism,  and mindless violence.

During these times, one might wonder if faith really makes a difference.  We are not alone in wondering.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta, one of the most celebrated women of faith in modern times, struggled with “spiritual dryness” and prolonged struggles of faith, as her personal letters posthumously revealed.

Ultimately, each of us must answer questions of faith for ourselves.  Faith, at its essence, is trust in what we cannot see, cannot confirm, and cannot validate with technical proof. Faith cannot be directed, inherited, or prescribed.  The faithful know that their spiritual witness is intimate and individual.  The faithful also know that they must work to achieve their personal witness of faith…and work to maintain it. 

In times of trial and tragedy; during decades spent in pain, fear, and disability; and especially when our prayers appear to go unanswered, it takes super-human effort to keep the faith … to believe vibrantly, to hope steadfastly in what cannot be seen, to pray fervently when desperate silence surrounds us.  Yet many things suggest it is precisely in these critical times that we need faith the most – and when the power of faith may be most potent.

 

Harold Koenig, M.D., author of The Healing Power of Faith, has examined the healing powers of religious belief, including 70 data-based, peer-reviewed papers published in medical and scientific journals, that found:

• People with strong faith who suffer from physical illness have significantly better health outcomes than less religious people.
• People who attend religious services regularly have stronger immune systems and lower stress than their less religious counterparts
• Religious faith seems to protect the elderly from cardiovascular disease and cancer.
• Religious patients recover from hip fractures and open-heart surgeries better than nonreligious patients.

These studies do not suggest that keeping faith is easy.   If you are struggling to find solace for your soul, it is wise to remember that the course of faith is a course in courage and continuous renewal.  While the news media focused intensely on Mother Teresa’s personal doubts, they overlooked the only point that matters:  she continued to pursue a courageous course of faith, working with some of the most abject misery and poverty we can imagine, in spite of and in the throes of struggles of faith.  She did not have terminal doubt; she had, instead, incurable faith. 

She may have understood that faith – like molten iron – becomes as strong as steel only when it is tested, tempered, and refined by fire.  The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, speaking the words of the Lord, counseled:  “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have chosen these in the furnace of affliction.”  (Isaiah 48:10)

~SDS