God grant me… A Limpid Faith

I wake up to Papal tweets on my phone most mornings, given our time difference from the Vatican, and this morning I read an exhortation to “a limpid Faith” with a reference to a link (presumable a homily or teaching).

I didn’t know what “limpid” meant so I knew this was where I’d start my reading this morning.

What a beautiful new word and a beautiful way to think of faith. Especially imagining the clear blue hues of the Caribbean and qualitatively aligning my faith with the clarity on a great day for snorkeling! 🌊🐠

“A Christianity without a cross is a worldly Christianity, and shows itself to be sterile…

Our witness can be weakened by worldliness and mediocrity. The cross demands instead a limpid testimony. For the cross is not a flag to wave, but the pure source of a new way of living. Which? That of the Gospel, that of the Beatitudes.

A witness who bears the cross in his or her heart, and not only on his or her neck, views no one as an enemy, but everyone as a brother or sister for whom Jesus gave his life.

A witness of the cross does not dwell on the wrongs of the past or keep lamenting the present.

Witnesses of the cross do not employ the ways of deception and worldly pretension: they do not want to impose themselves and their own, but to give their lives for others. They seek not their own advantage, in order to be seen as devout: this would be a religion of hypocrisy, not a witness to the crucified Lord.

Witnesses of the cross have but one strategy, that of the Master: humble love.

They do not look for triumphs here below, because they know that the love of Christ bears fruit in the events of daily life, renewing all things from w ithin, like the seed that falls to the ground, dies and produces much fruit.

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS FRANCIS
TO BUDAPEST, ON THE OCCASION OF THE CONCLUDING HOLY MASS
OF THE 52nd INTERNATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS,
AND TO SLOVAKIA

I want a faith that is “clear of anything that darkens”. But that takes work. Work to open my heart to love, against my sometimes natural inclination. Work to remove the logs in my eyes and forgive and let go of most of the logs of others.

It also requires that I take up my cross. The cross is the focus of the Pope’s homily included in the original tweet. He advises against the cross being like a book on a shelf, more ornamental than worn.

“What good is this, unless we stop to look at the crucified Jesus and open our hearts to him, unless we let ourselves be struck by the wounds he bears for our sake, unless our hearts swell with emotion and we weep before the God wounded for love of us.

Unless we do that, the cross remains an unread book whose title and author we know, without its having any impact on our lives. Let us not reduce the cross to an object of devotion, much less to a political symbol, to a sign of religious and social status.”

And as someone who lives in the world, this faith requires a continual realignment toward a life that bears the fruit of humble love over any worldly success or lesser good.

🙏🏾 Let us pray:

God, you created the cool tropical breeze and the calm clear waters of the Caribbean.

You created the sun and the palm trees and the wind to sway them. You created the fish and the coral in the sea, the brains for humanity to explore it, and the call to steward and preserve it.

You created me for work but also for relaxation and for love and to be loved. You gave me a clean heart, a limpid heart, at my baptism, and renewed it at confirmation.

Lord give me the strength to follow you, to keep my heart aligned with Yours, and to pick up my cross and follow you.

Let me choose love over hate, over division, over politics, over the torrent of trivial and meaningless things that the world would have me turn.

Lord help me find my life by losing it for your sake, for nothing that is Yours is ever truly lost.