Today, in the United States, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination. She boasts the most number of members. Do you know what the second largest Christian group. It is former Catholics. 

We know this reality personally. We have family members and friends who have left the Catholic Church. They may say that they disagree with Church teaching on marriage or the priesthood. They might say that they had a bad meeting with a priest. All we know is that they have not come into these doors for some time. 

Recently, I went over to someone’s house to bless their mother. The mother sighed as she said that only 1 of her 3 daughters has a life in the Church. The other two have gone to faiths outside of the Church.

This hits our Catholic Schools and faith formation programs too. Our Catholic School, James Collins Catholic School is a great school. It provides an opportunity for children to immersed in an integrated faith-filled environment. Our children are able to learn about Jesus Christ, the sacraments, and the commandments. They are taught about our belief and faith. Yet, they too often times will leave the Church once they become adults. Many will say that they found Jesus Christ in another faith.

How can this be? How does this happen? I think it ultimately is about the difference between faith and belief. Today, I will preach on Why we believe. Next week, why be christian and the following week, why be catholic.

What is belief. Belief is the natural human gift to ascent to the information of another person’s witness. It is part of what it means to be human. We have to agree with something someone says or not and we do this all the time.

For example, Who is the first president of the United States? It is George Washington. But, how do you know. No one here lived when he lived or met him as a person. How do you know that he was the first president. We believe the testimony of someone else. It could be our teachers or our textbooks. And the more people’s testimony declares something as true, it is easier for us to believe. Another example of this is Neil Armstrong and the moon landing. We believe because someone else tells us it is true. This could be via radio, television, or an individual. 

Since belief is a natural human occurrence, it is for this reason, that when someone tells a lie, it is so difficult to trust and believe them again. They have violated that sacred seal  of credibility. It is also why, when someone is tricked into believing something is true and it comes out the opposite that they have such a hard time believing again.

Recently, I was just looking at the most popular youtube hits and there was this video of snoop Doggy Dog. You know the rapper. He was doing a concert recently with Tupac Shakur. Now, that’s impossible, because Tupac was murdered over a decade ago, but there was Tupac on the stage interacting with Snoop Dog. It was an elaborate display that made Tupac look like he was on stage. This could have led many who were at the concert or watched the video to believe that Tupac is alive. The belief came out to be false. Sometimes we set these things up for our children and ask them to believe something that is false. We tell them about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. We say that there is a tooth fairy. And then we wonder why they dont believe in Jesus Christ. 
                                      

So we believe all the time. This is part of what it means to be human. Sometimes the belief might be true or not. The more witnesses to a belief, the more we can be assured of the truth. For us, who call ourselves Christians, we have had hundreds of millions who have witnessed to this truth and are willing to lay down their lives for the faith. This makes it much more easy to believe.

However, when it comes to those who have left the Church, they will say that they believed the Church, but it came not true. You see my friends, for us to pass on Christianity, we can not simply ask our young people, friends, and family members to believe, but we have to ask them to have faith. Faith is the fulfillment of belief. Faith is a supernatural virtue of living out completely what we profess to believe. It ultimately is given in the greatest form in the knowledge through a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. When we encounter Jesus Christ, faith is lavished upon us and this knowledge becomes a guiding principle of our lives. We become disciples of the person of Jesus, following Him by this knowledge, and not simply by someone else’s testimony.

This is where the Gospel comes into play. Today, we hear about the disciples who were gathered together. They had just experienced the testimony of some of the women who were at the tomb that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Peter and 

John had come back and said that indeed something marvelous happened.Jesus was 

raised. Now the disciples are with those who met Jesus in the breaking of the bread on the way to Emmaus. What was happening? The disciples were beginning to believe not from an encounter with Jesus Christ but from someone else’s testimony. They weretalking about what all of this means when Jesus appeared to them. They were in disbelief. They thought it was a ghost. Perhaps a hallucination. But Jesus said, look at my flesh. This is truly my body and blood. It is me. Th

en, I love this part. He says. I am hungry. He says this not because he wanted a hamburger after a long journey, although, I would be hungry if came from the land of the dead. But, he wanted to prove that he was bodily alive. This is truly Jesus. This encounter with the person of Jesus Christ changed the disciple. They took the faith from this knowledge and went forth to testify to the resurrection. They had first hand experience of the resurrection. 

Back to us, how do we move from simple belief to the knowledge of a personal encounter with the Risen Lord. It is not enough to just belief what I say is true, but to live. Joseph Pieper is one of my favorite writers. He wrote a book, “Leisure the basis of culture” which is an excellent read. Another book “faith, hope, and love” he talk about how we grow our faith. Both by the way are great books to read before you go to bed, they will put you right to sleep.

He says that faith is given to us first and most importantly in our prayer. It is in our prayer where we encounter the person of Jesus Christ. In the sacraments, which are sublime form of prayer, we encounter the person of Jesus Christ. We come to Him in our prayer and eventually, our eyes will be opened to the reality that He is alwa

ys with us. This will forge the faith that we need to live out what we have come to believe. 

Secondly, Joseph Pieper says that we can testify to our faith. By representing the faith to the disciples, those who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus provided the avenue through which Jesus appeared to the other disciples. When he did appear, there was no changing their faith. They were willing to die for it. When we either give a testimony of our own faith or hear someone else’s we will grow in our faith through this encounter with other people’s experiences.

So what are we to do to ensure our families become families of faith? To make sure that the belief that is being taught to our children in faith formation classes or in school take root so that they become men and women of faith and remain active in the Church. 

For this I turn to the men, all of the dads, the husbands, and grandfathers. It is your fi

rst responsibility to breathe room into your families for the presence of the person of Jesus Christ. Studies have shown that it is through the father, that children come to have faith. If a dad does not express it, the likelihood of the child to believe and to have faith becomes less. Men, you have to pray with your children. You have to bless your children, you have to speak with your children about your love for God. You have to be their with your children to do charitable works. All of these pave the way for your child to believe and then encounter the person of Jesus. Through this encounter faith will come!

One last story for you. Because I did not go to Catholic School, I did not have my prayers memorized. I remember having to learn all of these as an adult. I will always remember when I was a seminarian and I was leading the Rosary for the seminary when I forgot the Our Father. Talk about a humbling experience. 

Well, I learned about Mary as the mother of Jesus, I came to believe about how she is the mother of the 

Church, and therefore my mother. I learned the rosary. Yet, it was all coming from someone else’s experience of the Blessed Mother. I believed but was lacking in faith.

I remember the day, when I had an encounter  with Mary and sensed that she was so close to me. I remember running to my spiritual director with this newfound knowledge that Mary was there to lead me closer to Jesus and she loved me. To this day often times when I celebrate a sacrament, Mass or anointing of the sick, I sense that she is there. Its as if I can see her. Well at least at Mass having that stained glass window of Mary to look at helps.