Early yesterday morning we headed down to the church at the foot of the hill for Sunday mass. The presiding priest was Father Armando, one of the leaders of an order of priests doing work among the poor in Mrs. Buster's native country. Father Armando is a courageous man and an excellent speaker, although much of his eloquence is lost on my merely functional understanding of Mrs. Buster's native language.
Father Armando's homily was about faith, among other things, and he used a line that I've heard often said in English: "Faith can move mountains."
This statement always reminds me of the 1960's hippies, some of whom were deeply "into" Jesus. They believed that faith could, in fact, move mountains. They believed that if only they just believed enough, and were mystical enough, that they could create world peace just by visualising it. They believed that they could levitate the Pentagon by meditating in the right way, with the correct kind of faith. Then, when nothing happened, they became disillusioned and sold out.
They made what I see as a common mistake. They assumed that faith—true, deep faith in God—would allow them to achieve their goals. They thought faith, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit would give them the power to conquer evil as they defined evil, to perform the miracles that they had in mind.
I beg to differ. Deep faith does allow one to perform miracles. The Holy Spirit does give one the power to conquer evil. However, it's not your kind of miracles and your kind of evil that are the issue here. Faith doesn't give you the power to change the world to your liking; instead, it gives you the power to perform the miracles that God has in mind for you to perform. In effect, true faith allows you to do God's work in God's way.
This is where that humility thing comes in. The hippies wanted to levitate the Pentagon and to end all wars on earth. Perhaps God had other plans. Perhaps all God wanted from Hippy Harry was that he save one child. Maybe that was Harry's job. Perhaps Harry should have said, "God, I know I won't understand why you want me to do this job you've given me, but give me the job anyway. I have faith that somehow, in some way, it fits into your great Plan." Instead, he said, "God, give me the power to do what I think the world needs." Sorry, Harry. It doesn't work that way.
I do believe that faith can move mountains. However, it can do so only if those are the mountains that God wants moved. You are not the author of miracles, only the tool that God uses to achieve them.
Half of the equation is faith: the belief that if God wants it done through you, then no matter how impossible it may seem, you shall do it. The other half of the equation is humility: the acceptance that your part in God's plan may be disappointingly small, either because that is what God wants of you, or because you don't understand the significance of what you're doing. You may want to be a lead actor on the world stage, like Mother Theresa or one of the saints, but in fact your part may appear to be trivial. Nonetheless, it is what God wants of you. Anybody who thinks that it's easy to get up day after day doing something that is good and kind but seems unimportant should try it. It requires a lot of faith, and a good dose of the Holy Spirit.
