Pastor's Perspective

The Advent Season calls us to faith – to open our hearts to the God who comes among us. Each year as we celebrate this season we are called not to simply repeat past experiences but to acknowledge that faith is a life-long process of conversion and growth. I recently read an article that I thought expresses this wonderfully. I thought that you too might enjoy it:

Committed to a Faith That Grows as We Do

Living faith is the mighty mustard seed that grows into an even mightier tree (cf. Mt. 17:20). It changes as we do. The faith that we experienced as a child, lovely as it was, will not serve us as an adult. What we believed in the 12th grade cannot be enough for the trials of parenthood or the tragedies that confront a surgeon or teacher or peace officer or someone suddenly out of work.

Many of us discover in middle age that the certain stars that guided our youth are insufficient to light the next stage of our life; we feel as if we have to start over. Among those who suspect that death will soon come calling, many often face new doubts and questions in their last days. The Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor knew this struggle in her own life but said: “I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A God you understood would be less than yourself.”

In the end, faith is exactly what is beyond the bounds of what we know, a presence beyond the known and seen, a voice that can surprise us and draw us beyond our self-interest, even beyond what we thought was possible.

By Bishop Todd Brown, Origins