Once a bishop said that he received a letter from a priest who was critical of his own seminary formation. In that letter he said that all through his years of preparation for priesthood he was often asked, “Are you happy?” “Are you maturing?” “Are you open?” “How are your grades?” But never once, did his formators ask him: “Do you believe in God?”
The bishop said that although his complaint was uncommon and unexpected, since faith is something that is taken for granted in a seminarian or priest, since if a priest loses his faith his life would make no sense. However, the bishop continued and his point was a good one: the absolute necessity of faith or rather the absolute necessity of growing in our faith during our earthly pilgrimage.
Faith is a virtue and as all virtues, it can either increase (it should grow) or decrease (it must not decrease) during our life. That is why we should constantly be asking ourselves and be reflecting on it during our lives: am I growing in my faith?
I would like to give you 3 pieces of advice to help your faith to grow.
First of all, we should take care of it. To take care of our faith means to nourish it (studying, acts of faith, immediate rejection of temptations, etc.). If we do not perform any act to make it grow, then we are not taking care of it.
Second, coherence. We usually think that faith is an act of the intelligence which accepts the mysteries of faith, which is true. However, it is the will (elevated by the grace) that moves the intelligence in order to assent to the mysteries of faith. That is why faith demands coherence, and we should live out our faith. Every day our lives should be more and more coherent with our faith.
The third advice is works or deeds, as St. James says: show me your faith without your works and I will show my faith by my works. Faith needs to be active. It needs to express itself. When we express our faith by our works (of mercy, of charity, etc.) our faith does not run out but rather grows more and more.
