Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first human
being in space. Orbiting Earth in his spaceship, he said he looked down and saw
how beautiful the planet is. And he urged his fellow man to preserve the beauty
of the earth and to increase it. A beautiful sentiment which complements our
faith nicely. The earth is beautiful,
creation is beautiful because God the Creator, the source of beauty, beauty
itself, has left his fingerprints on creation.
For many years it was thought that the Soviet cosmonaut also
uttered something quite incongruent with our faith. The Soviet government claimed
that while Gagarin orbited the earth in outer space, Gagarin said, “I looked
all around and I didn’t see God.”
Come to find out it was the Atheist First Secretary of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, who mocked the idea of
God, ascribing these words to Gagarin to further the party line: you can’t see
God in outer space, therefore God doesn’t exist.
Gagarin, in fact, was a devout Christian, a baptized member
of the Russian Orthodox Church, who said, “An astronaut cannot be suspended in
space and not have God in his mind and his heart.”
But, there are many, these days, who would agree with
Krushchev, “I look around and I don’t see God.” So much evil and violence in
the world, the Christian is sometimes tempted to wonder if God is really there
at all. Depression, despair, divorce, betrayals, loneliness, emptiness, these
things cause us to doubt, they challenge our faith. God cannot be reduced to
something that can be seen by the naked eye, even when all the evil in the world
causes us to doubt.
You may have heard of the Viennese psychiatrist Viktor
Frankl who was also a Jewish Holocaust and concentration camp survivor. Frankl
wrote a book called, “Man’s Search for Meaning” in which he talks about the
great suffering and evil he experienced at the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
As a great thinker, even while being tortured in Aushwitz, he continued to ask
questions. He was intrigued how some of the prisoners there seemed to have had this
amazing drive they kept them alive, an inner strength, while some people, died very
quickly of a broken spirit. What made the survivors survive, he asked?
What gave them
strength, what gave them life, he concluded was “meaning”. Those who found “meaning”
in their suffering survived. Those who believed that their suffering meant
something, that God was at work even in the midst of their suffering, bringing
something good out of the suffering. Perhaps God was only strengthening their
own trust in Him, but that’s something! Faith that God used their suffering to
bring about a greater good, literally saved their lives. Faith saved their
lives. Faith become the conduit for life.
St. Paul, in our second reading, described faith as “evidence
of things not seen.” Though Yuri Gagarin looked all around and didn’t see God,
he still had faith. Though so many in the concentration camps saw humanity at
its most cruel, many still kept faith.
Faith is the bedrock of our Christian life. No one here in
this church saw with their physical eyes Jesus rise from the dead, but we know
that he is risen. Faith allows us to see under appearances. The Eucharist looks
like bread and wine, faith tells us, it is much more. We KNOW the Eucharist is
the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Why do we believe this? We accept the tenets of our faith NOT
because our own senses assure us of it, but because the person who tells it to
us is trustworthy. In this case, in matters of faith, the Church is trustworthy.
She has weathered the storms of two thousand years, she has taught the same
doctrine since her beginning, and she continues to make saints.
I think that’s always one of the most compelling reasons to
become and remain Catholic. The Church makes saints! It works. Catholicism
brings out the best of us. It makes us the best versions of ourselves. It makes
us patient as we know we should be, it makes us forgiving, and generous, and
selfless, and devoted, as we know deep down each one is supposed to be.
When you work the program, so to speak, you can become a
mother Theresa, a Maximillian Kolbe, a john paul ii, a Therese of Liseaux. And
our failure to become as holy as we should, we know, it’s not the Church’s
fault, it’s not God’s fault, it’s our failure to work the program, our failure
to trust and obey.
How can we learn to grow in faith? How can we learn to see
beyond all the evil in the world to a God who works mysteriously, often behind
the scenes? By practicing the faith. Each
day, when good things happen or when bad things happen, God is always providing
us with opportunities to say in our hearts, "Lord, I believe in you; teach
me to follow you."
St. Margaret Mary said, “May faith be the torch which
illuminates, animates and sustains you, so that all your actions and sufferings
may be for God alone Who should be served in privation as well as in
consolation.”
When your children misbehave or you have an argument with a
spouse: “Lord, I believe in you; teach me to follow you.” When you get a
promotion or demotion, when you are praised for your hard work or ignored by
those who should know better. When you are stuck in traffic or all the lights
seem to be turning green just for you. When you are at the top of your game or
at rock bottom. Make everything an occasion of faith. Don’t claim the glory for
yourself, don’t act like you are alone in your suffering.
By practicing the faith, fervently, it will be there when we
most need it. But to neglect it, to fail to pray, to fail to worship, to fail
to serve, how can we be surprised when the storms of life come and overwhelm
us.
The evils of the world are not proof that God doesn’t exist,
our personal sufferings aren’t proof that God doesn’t love us. They are
opportunities to grow in faith, to allow God to bring the best out of us, by
trusting and surrendering all to Him.
May we trust in God in our joys and sorrows, trials and
temptations, seeking above His Holy Will for the glory of God and salvation of
souls.
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