Yesterday, 08:26 AM
Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908
SEVENTEENTH OBJECTION. I WOULD WILLINGLY HAVE FAITH, BUT I CANNOT.
Answer. That is a pure illusion, which will not excuse you at the tribunal of the awful Judge, who has declared to us, that "he who believes in Him has eternal life, and he who believes not in Him is already condemned."
You cannot believe? And what means have you taken to arrive at faith? He who desires the end desires the means also; he who neglects the means shows evidently that he is not very anxious about the end.
Now, that is your case, if you have not faith. Either you have not adopted the means of obtaining it, or you have not adopted them thoroughly, which comes to nearly the same thing.
1st. Have you prayed? It is the first condition of all God's gifts, consequently of faith, which is the most precious of them all, and the fundamental condition. Have you asked of God this grace of faith? How have you asked for it? Have you not asked indifferently, without feeling deeply interested in it; once only, perhaps, and without perseverance? Had you while praying, have you at this present moment, a deep, a sincere, a lively desire to believe and to be a Christian? There are some who ask for virtues, and who are very much afraid of obtaining them.
2d. Have you studied religion with a sincere love of the truth? Have I not seen skeptics studying religion in Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.? As well might you try to learn the manners and customs of the United States from the Chinese. Have you sought out a well-informed priest, or, at least, a Christian of enlightened belief, to whom to expose your difficulties, and have them solved? Pride is at hand, and often hinders this.
3d. Are you resolved, if God were to give you faith, to live according to its holy and rigid maxims, to combat your passions, to labor for your sanctification, to make to God the sacrifices which He shall demand of you?
Here, with the most part of unbelievers, is the true reason of their incredulity. It is in the main the heart, it is passion rather than reason, which rejects faith as too difficult, too wearisome. "Light has come into the world," said Jesus Christ, "and men have preferred darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." The heart gets the better of the head. Then all arguments are useless, truth is not to be listened to. "None are so deaf as those who will not hear," says the proverb.
This blindness is voluntary and culpable in its cause; this is why our Lord Jesus Christ declared that all unbelievers are judged beforehand; they have resisted truth.
Be of good faith then in your researches after religious truth; ask God for light with sincerity and perseverance, lay your doubts before some charitable and enlightened Priest; be disposed to live according to the faith as soon as the divine light shall illuminate your mind; and I affirm to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that you will not fail soon to believe, and to become a good Catholic. "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
SEVENTEENTH OBJECTION. I WOULD WILLINGLY HAVE FAITH, BUT I CANNOT.
Answer. That is a pure illusion, which will not excuse you at the tribunal of the awful Judge, who has declared to us, that "he who believes in Him has eternal life, and he who believes not in Him is already condemned."
You cannot believe? And what means have you taken to arrive at faith? He who desires the end desires the means also; he who neglects the means shows evidently that he is not very anxious about the end.
Now, that is your case, if you have not faith. Either you have not adopted the means of obtaining it, or you have not adopted them thoroughly, which comes to nearly the same thing.
1st. Have you prayed? It is the first condition of all God's gifts, consequently of faith, which is the most precious of them all, and the fundamental condition. Have you asked of God this grace of faith? How have you asked for it? Have you not asked indifferently, without feeling deeply interested in it; once only, perhaps, and without perseverance? Had you while praying, have you at this present moment, a deep, a sincere, a lively desire to believe and to be a Christian? There are some who ask for virtues, and who are very much afraid of obtaining them.
2d. Have you studied religion with a sincere love of the truth? Have I not seen skeptics studying religion in Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.? As well might you try to learn the manners and customs of the United States from the Chinese. Have you sought out a well-informed priest, or, at least, a Christian of enlightened belief, to whom to expose your difficulties, and have them solved? Pride is at hand, and often hinders this.
3d. Are you resolved, if God were to give you faith, to live according to its holy and rigid maxims, to combat your passions, to labor for your sanctification, to make to God the sacrifices which He shall demand of you?
Here, with the most part of unbelievers, is the true reason of their incredulity. It is in the main the heart, it is passion rather than reason, which rejects faith as too difficult, too wearisome. "Light has come into the world," said Jesus Christ, "and men have preferred darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." The heart gets the better of the head. Then all arguments are useless, truth is not to be listened to. "None are so deaf as those who will not hear," says the proverb.
This blindness is voluntary and culpable in its cause; this is why our Lord Jesus Christ declared that all unbelievers are judged beforehand; they have resisted truth.
Be of good faith then in your researches after religious truth; ask God for light with sincerity and perseverance, lay your doubts before some charitable and enlightened Priest; be disposed to live according to the faith as soon as the divine light shall illuminate your mind; and I affirm to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that you will not fail soon to believe, and to become a good Catholic. "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre