… Faith leads Abraham to tread a paradoxical path. He will be blessed, but without the visible signs of blessing: he receives the promise to become a great nation, but with a life marked by the barrenness of his wife Sarah; he is brought to a new homeland but he will have to live there as a foreigner, and the only possession of the land that will be granted him will be that of a plot to bury Sarah (cf. Gen 23:1-20). Abraham was blessed because, in faith, he knows how to discern the divine blessing by going beyond appearances, trusting in God’s presence even when his ways seem mysterious to him.
What does this mean for us? When we affirm: “I believe in God,” we say, like Abraham: “I trust You; I entrust myself to You, Lord,” but not as Someone to run to only in times of difficulty or to whom to dedicate a few moments of the day or of the week. Saying “I believe in God” means founding my life on Him, letting his Word orient me each day, in the concrete choices, without fear of losing something of myself. When, in the Rite of Baptism, we are asked three times: “Do you believe?” in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church and the other truths of faith, the triple response is in the singular: “I believe,” because it is my personal existence that must go through a turning point with the gift of faith, it is my life that must change, convert. Each time we attend a Baptism we should ask ourselves how we are living out the great gift of faith each day.
Abraham, the believer, teaches us faith; and, as a stranger on earth, shows us our true homeland. Faith makes us pilgrims on earth, placed within the world and its history, but on the way to the heavenly homeland. Believing in God therefore makes us bearers of values that often do not coincide with what’s fashionable or the opinions of the times, it asks us to adopt criteria and engage in conduct which do not belong to the common way of thinking. The Christian should not be afraid to go “against the grain” in order to live his faith, resisting the temptation to “conform”. In many societies God has become the “great absentee” and in his place there are many idols, first of all the autonomous ‘”I”. The significant and positive advances in science and technology also have caused in man an illusion of omnipotence and self-sufficiency, and a growing self-centeredness has created many imbalances in interpersonal relationships and social behaviors.
However, the thirst for God (cf. Ps 63:2) has not vanished and the Gospel message continues to resonate through the words and deeds of many men and women of faith. Abraham, the father of believers, continues to be the father of many children who are willing to walk in his footsteps and set out on the way, in obedience to the divine call, trusting in the benevolent presence of the Lord and welcoming his blessing to become a blessing for all. It is the blessed world of faith to which we are all called, to walk without fear following the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is sometimes a difficult journey, that knows even trial and death, but that opens onto life, in a radical transformation of reality that only the eyes of faith can see and savor in abundance.
To say “I believe in God” leads us, then, to set off, to go out of ourselves continually, just like Abraham, to bring into the daily reality in which we live the certainty that comes to us from faith: the certainty, that is, of the presence of God in history, even today; a presence that brings life and salvation, and opens us to a future with Him for a fullness of life that will never diminish.
Pope Benedict XVI
On Abraham’s Faith, January 23, 2012
