The Eyes of Faith

Homily for the Memorial of the Guardian Angels

In the eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, we read: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” Apart from whatever else faith is – and it has more than one meaning – it is a way of seeing. Faith leads us to see more. Faith makes us certain of realities we do not see. For instance, faith helps us to see God’s presence in our lives, God’s gifts in the world and in the people around us – their goodness, simplicity, freshness and depth, strength and gentleness, their sufferings, fears, and worries.

The beings that we call angels are reminders, representations of the riches around us and of all God’s gifts we so often miss. Faith enables us to see more than what can be measured or weighed, or conceived by reason or imagination. In addition, faith is also a conscious choice on our part, a decision to look for the signs and hints of God in our world and life. St. Bonaventure refers to these as the vestiges of God that appear in creation. In St. Bonaventure’s great work, “The Mind’s Journey into God,” the signs and hints of God in our world lead us to faith in God’s presence in our lives.

In the reading from the Book of Job that we proclaim today, Job speaks of such vestiges. He points to the mountains, to the sun, to the heavens and the constellations therein. He tells his friends that God is near him though he sees God not. When God passes by him, he is not aware of God. Yet we know that Job never lost faith in God even though he was not able to perceive God’s presence in his life.

Yes, faith tells us to see the Divine reflected in our world, to interpret our experience of God from that vantage point – gullible and quaint as it may seem to nonbelievers. So often, either in word or attitude, we accrue reality as being stale, dull, dreary, and empty. These thoughts suggest the words of Francis Thompson in his poem The Kingdom of God:

The angels keep their ancient places,
turn but a stone, and start a wing!
To see, it is your estranged faces,
that miss the many-splendored thing.

Today’s feast can remind us of all we miss by limiting ourselves to what can be weighed, touched, paid for, consumed, or what because of prejudice, we presume is all there is to see.