“When the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8) These words by Christ call for deep reflection. It is interesting to note that the Lord here insists that it is neither humility, nor charity, nor even mercy that He will seek out first upon His returning to earth, but faith.
This makes much sense because it is a result of having faith that the other virtues can flourish and find their true meaning. It is faith in Jesus that does not allow humility to become false modesty, charity to become philanthropy and mercy to become mere sentimentality devoid of truth.
True faith, which results from a deep prayer life, has endowed believers with such love that they have sometimes carried out actions which are well and truly beyond belief. During the last war, in Auschwitz concentration camp, a Franciscan friar, now canonised, offered to exchange his life for that of a family man about to be executed by the Nazis.
Now this was not simply a matter of being put against a wall and shot. He, together with others, was put in a small dark cell and left to die a slow, agonising death through hunger and thirst. After many days, being the last one still alive, he was given a lethal injection. Indeed, as Christ said, “a man can have no greater love than laying down his life for his friends”. (John 15:13)
Another instance where faith plays a crucial role is when suffering strikes in a most brutal and unexpected manner, such as in the sudden illness of a loved one. Believers will pray hard and sometimes their loved one will regain his or her health. However, often this does not happen, and amid many tears they have to let go of a dear relative.
Does this mean God has ignored our prayers? Certainly not. The believer should always, hard as it may be, end their prayers for a grace with the same words Christ used in the Garden of Olives when, terrified of what lay in store for him, he told his Father that it was His will that mattered, not his own.
All this confounds unbelievers, as do so many other matters for which they have no answer. The believer, on the other hand, while unable to fully understand the rationale behind so much suffering, still believes that God is an all-loving Father who will one day wipe away every tear from our eyes. He will take comfort from the words of St Paul, who in Corinthians 2-9, says: “No eye has seen and no ear has heard all that God has prepared for those who love Him”.
Finally, to those who are militant in their intent to fight against God who they say does not exist, one can only say: “You just do not know what you are missing”.