I don't understand all the teachings of the Faith. However, ever since I came back to the Church, I have made a conscious decision to accept them as Truth, and assume that it is my own (fallen and flawed) reason which is at fault. A friend once described this as a blind leap of faith, not into the dark, but into the LIGHT...
Sure enough, I often find that the understanding comes later, after I have made an assent of my will to believe the teachings of the Church as absolute Truth.
Ma Beck has obviously experienced the same thing, only she puts it so much better. I love the tag line she's put at the top of her blog - If a person cannot name at least one article of Faith which he believes based solely on the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium, he is either a Saint or a Protestant.
Read more HERE.
Wow! That's an amazing way of describing it.
ReplyDeleteIt kind of ties in with what Fr. Stephen and I were discussing about making leaps.
In your analogy I guess a further extension is "it's dark here, I know it's light over there; I don't know how they have light, but I prefer the light to the dark".
John Henry Cardinal Newman has a great perspective on this in Chapter 7 of his Grammar of Assent entitled Assent and Certitude Contrasted.
ReplyDeleteIt says everything I want to say better than I can ever hope to say it so you'd better read it directly from him. =)
I hope this helps.