Belief

Sometimes as I am going about my life I stop. “Wait a minute!” I say, like Cher in the movie Moonstruck. “Wait a minute, snap out of it!” And I go over it again. Suddenly I realize that as a Christian I have to believe that there was a man come 2000 years ago who conquered death and was resurrected. How in the earthly world could that be? I have to believe that this man was born of a virgin girl, died on a cross and came back to life. I have to believe that after His resurrection he visited his friends, showing them his wounds, teaching them the gospel. I have to believe that in the early years of the church when the priest raised the bread and wine, he consecrated the elements into the actual body and blood of Christ. He still does today.

And then I think, “Do I believe this? How can I?” I am a normal human being. It all seems so impossible, if not foolish, ridiculous.

I then struggle with this belief, having accustomed myself to being in the physical world where things like this just cannot be. These mysteries are not scientifically provable. I never see dead people. Nor angels. I have bought the tale hook, line and sinker, for life, and yet there is very little evidence that it is true, and it is unlike me to believe anything is true that cannot be proven. Furthermore, the belief includes so much more. Angels filled the sky with song the night He was born. Astrologers followed a special star to his birthplace. King Herod murdered every firstborn child under the age of two soon after he was born, causing his parents’ flight into Egypt. He raised a man dead four days to life. He fed five thousand, not including women and children, with a few loaves and fishes. Twice. He descended into hell during the three days he was dead, and released souls from captivity. Hell? Souls captive?

I have to believe here is a heaven where souls pass after death. He came from there. And I have to believe that heaven is a whole big world out there - beyond the pale. Mary His mother is crowned its queen . She prays for us; the saints in heaven pray for us. He prays for us. They are our family, watching over us, a cloud of witnesses. Many of our own earthly families are there, praying for us. Our own prayers rise like incense to the very altar of God, heard and answered in heaven. This impossibly invisible world of angels, saints, the Holy Family and the Holy Trinity I have to believe in. Yet I have never seen one angel.

And yes, agnostic friends, I do not HAVE to believe…But I do, because He manifested Himself unto me so that the ineffable became real, the impossible became the normal, and the unseen became the seen.

Sometimes months and years pass by and I see certain prayers are not answered. But each day there are may unasked-for things that God does do for me: I see my children happy, working hard and resting in their faith. I see their children grow and thrive and speak the words of God. My husband is everything to me. Words of the Bible speak to me at just the right moment, friends call at just the right moment, I swerve to miss a deer at just the right moment.. I breathe. I see. I hear. I am thankful and filled with a glorious peace.

And so my soul soars to that great spirit who is everywhere, and says, “ How can I not believe?”