Faith Forward

We also must go and start out by making progress: because he who stands still runs the risk of being unable to preserve the life of grace. For, along the road to God, if we do not go forward we fall back. (690)

Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on St. John 4:46-54 (675-698)

The story of Christ healing the Official's Son is the story of every Christian according to Thomas. Each of us begins the life of faith by inviting Jesus to visit us. We plead with God to heal the things in our lives that most trouble us, even as the Official asked Jesus to come and heal his dying son. However, immature faith can be wrong-headed; we can desire the wrong things and then mope when we don't get what we want. By contrast the Official demonstrates willingness to have his desires changed by Christ.

Jesus responded to the Official's request with a rebuke: "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe." Why the rebuke? Thomas answers, "He had been brought up among the Jews and instructed in the law" and yet, "he wanted to believe through signs, and not by the authority of the Scripture." According to Thomas, this passage teaches that mature faith does not have to be bolstered up by signs and wonders.

According to Thomas this story highlights a critical truth about the nature of faith: it must progress from immaturity to maturity:

The faith of the official was constantly growing: for at the beginning, when he pleaded for his sick son, it was weak; then it began to grow more firm, when he called Jesus "Lord", then when he believed what the Lord said and started for home, it was more perfect, but not completely so, because he still doubted. But here, clearly realizing God's power in Christ, his faith is made perfect, for as Proverbs (4:18) says: "The way of the just goes forward like a shining light, increasing to the full light of day." (697)

It was not wrong for the Official to desire his son's healing. Rather, he erred in how he imagined the healing would take place. He had envisioned a personal visit from Christ. Perhaps he thought that nothing less would do. However, when he met Jesus face to face his thinking was rearranged. His imagination was changed: Christ got bigger. For he met, face to face, the Omnipresent Word who spoke the world into existence and for whom distance is insignificant.

How does faith grow in maturity? How can we encounter Christ in such a way that our desires are purified? Thomas has a time-honored solution: "we should prepare our soul by prayer, and we do this by going to God through our desires." This kind of prayer requires taking risks before God. It can be painful to give voice to the things that we have not yet dared to ask of God; The fear of disappointment can be paralyzing. And yet we only come face to face with God "through our desires." When we blurt out our dreams and longings He may rebuke us, even as he did the Official, but only for the purpose of refining our desires. Ultimately, the desires of our hearts that endure the firey furnace of prayer are answered, and by their realization, God is glorified.

Quotes taken from Commentary on the Gospel of Saint John, trans. by James A. Weisheipl with F. R. Larcher, vol. 1. Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1980.

For more on the importance of desire in prayer see Listening Prayer by Leanne Payne, chapter 5.


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