Increase our faith

Increase Our Faith

Faith is not only the perpetual element of our spiritual life; it is also a most firm element, firmer by far than consolations and extraordinary graces. Saint Peter, after having alluded to the Transfiguration, of which he was a privileged witness, and to that heavenly voice, the voice of the Father, which his own ears heard on the height of Thabor, assures us that, despite everything else, we have something firmer and more secure: And we have the more firm prophetical word (2 Pt 1:19), the revealed word, that is, the faith.

In fact, the faith is something firmer and more secure than would be the appearance of our Lord to us and his speech with us…. Who does not imagine that an apparition would be something most efficacious in the spiritual life? Nevertheless, I repeat that the light of faith is firmer and surer than an apparition…. I recall a person who arrived at a very high degree of prayer by means of this very simple procedure. She said to herself, “If I would see our Lord, how would I react? What would I say to him? How would I comport myself with him?” Then she would vivify her faith and say, “I do not see him with my eyes, but faith assures me that he is present in the tabernacle. Now, if he is here before me, I wish to enact what I should feel and say and do, as I would feel and say and do it if I were seeing him with my bodily eyes.” Thus, she intensified her faith and facilitated her communion with God….

Can we make our prayer with ease? Then let us be transported with it. Is our soul flooded with light? Then let us profit from it, so that our heart may glow. At the present time, however, do we lack all this? Then let us not be disturbed, for faith should suffice us in such a way that we should comport ourselves today as we comported ourselves yesterday. Yesterday we loved God in light and in joy; today let us love him in darkness and spiritual dryness. If we had the surety of his love yesterday, we ought also to have it today. His love does not depend on the changes of our heart, nor does it alter because our sensible dispositions change. His love is everlastingly the same.

Servant of God Luis María Martínez

Archbishop Martínez († 1956) was a spiritual author, and the first official Primate of Mexico.