Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - January 17, 2025
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from You.”
“When we trust our doubts and questions to God's love” we know the Holy Spirit is working in us. To doubt and question is a mark of serious faith. Just as in any relationship doubt is only present if we are really concerned about the relationship. We don't have doubts about whether some perfect stranger loves us; we may about someone who means a great deal to us. We question or doubt religion and God only to the degree that we take them seriously.
Theologian Karl Rahner suggests that there may be at least two phases in our questioning. At one time we will expend much energy and effort on looking for the available answers to our questions about the divinity of Christ, the place of the church, the nature of the Eucharist. Ultimately, while we do not cease our intellectual interest in these and other topics, we trust them to God's love. In fact, with new reading and study, new awareness of the world around us, new difficulties and questions will arise.
We never outgrow the need to think about our faith. But there may come a less hectic and fevered concern about the issues, less belief that we must be able to satisfy all our questions with specific answers. We recognize that our human intellect is not necessarily equal to the dimensions and mysteries of the universe and God. We learn to lay before God not simply our needs and desperation but all our doubts and questions.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
