Authentic faith

Today's readings: Acts 3, 13-15. 17-19; 1 John 2, 1-5; Luke 24, 35-48.

Jesus's concluding words in today's Gospel, "You are witnesses to this", set out the challenge and responsibility of Christians in today's world. These words should prompt us to seriously question our identity and relevance as believers. Giving witness is much more than safeguarding doctrine. It is not merely perpetuating received traditions. In theology, the distinction between 'Tradition' and 'traditions' is highly significant. It is the former that stands for the true meaning of life transmitted to us by Jesus's death and resurrection.

One of our major challenges today is that there are many people who have had a Christian education, have turned away from the faith, but are still seeking. If they turned away from the faith but are still seeking, we need to be concerned about their perception of us. We need to explore more deeply the reasons for believing and for loss of faith. People with problems and doubts cannot be helped just by being fed recycled teachings.

This Sunday is still an extension of Easter Sunday, with the disciples still in alarm and fright, still not so sure what was happening around them. The 11 disciples thought the risen Lord was a ghost. He knew what troubled them, just as he reads the depths of our hearts today. In pastoral practice, we must do as Jesus did with the 11 gathered together: he helped their unbelief, before drawing attention to darkness and shadows.

The God we believe in is the God who believes in us. He never tires of loving and forgiving. His love and mercy are infinite, unconditional, without deadlines despite our wrong choices, sin, and persistent doubting. This is what emerges from today's readings when Jesus again appears to dissipate his disciples' doubts.

With our God there is always the possibility of starting afresh. While Peter proclaims the kerygma, the first and most basic proclamation of the faith, he is also all-forgiving: "Now I know, brothers, that neither you nor your leaders had any idea what you were really doing." It's a replica of Jesus's proclamation on the cross. Similarly, John says: "I am writing this to stop you sinning; but if anyone should sin we have our advocate with the Father." God finds all sorts of excuses to save us, to wipe away our guilt, to close an eye on our sinfulness.

We take different routes in our approach to our Lord. It is as if there is a whole network of roads that lead to the moment when our eyes are opened. The encounter with Jesus is always a very personal adventure that can make us taste the hope of reconstruction in the midst of destruction, which is the real meaning of the resurrection. Faith is not just some intellectual assent to doctrinal propositions. Many people who have received religious instruction have never encountered the Lord. Faith is not a teaching but an encounter, an experience of something real, tangible, even if not empirical.

When we are overcome by depression and discouragement, the most decisive remedy is remembering that the victory over evil is not fictitious or imaginary. Luke writes that "he then opened their minds to understand the scriptures". Faith, without the unfolding of the scriptures, risks remaining vague, even immature. Authentic faith in the risen Lord is not possible without listening to the scriptures. As Cardinal Martini writes, "The unfolding of the meaning of Scripture requires a slow, continuous process which lasts as long as a walk from afternoon to evening, an image of our pilgrimage through life."

There are big truths about life's meaning which may be slumbering, only waiting to be awoken. The truths of our religion are not speculations of the intellect, but realities closely linked to our hearts and to our nature. It is precisely there where the encounter with Jesus becomes a personal adventure and where Jesus answers our deepest needs.