MEANING OF THE FAITH

God-Centred Spirituality
S,-Permit me to express My sincere appreciation of Fr. Gerald Flanagan's article on Discovering the Gospel."
Too often, I fear, we pOor humans are inclined to be too self-centred in the practice of our faith. We Often forget the simple question and answer of the Cate.• chime: "Why did God create you?" ... "To know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him, and by those means to gain everlasting life." And we direct our lives more and more to the achievement of some worldly end than to the gaining of everlasting life, If we are to overcome this worldliness we must pray, and our prayer must be directed ever more and more towards God. This we cannot hope to achieve adequately unless we study God's own word, for any letter reveals the writer. and Sacred Scripture has been aptly described as letters from God to man.
The New Testament is especially
important. for in the life-story of Christ we find the supreme example of how our human lives should he directed God-wards. while St. Paul in his Epistles gives us an admirably effective yet very simple formula for our guidance in this "adventure in a living faith," when he seys: '' Whether you eat or drink or whatever else you do, do all for the glory of God."
Perhaps this may seem almost too
easy. Yet if we try to premise it sincerely it our daily lives we shall and that we shall have to draw upon the very deepest reserves of our faith and that it will provide us with ample opportunity for that " daily life" penance which Fr. Flanagan Mentions. Soon perhaps it may begin to seem too difficult. But it is then we must recall Fr. Flanagan's timely reminder of Our Lord's warning: " Without Me you can do nothing." If we would only strive to fathom more deeply, each one according as it Is given to him by God, the depths of the wonderful doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, then we should find less excuse for our lukewarmness, and become less afraid of our own human frailty. For, by the grace of God. we should soon come to affirm with St. Paull " I can do all things in Him Who strengtheneth me."
May I here suggest a further practical help in making our faith a truly living faith. We should find it very profitable, I think, were we to become better acquainted with the Liturgical life of the Church, to attune our minds and hearts to its spirit, and to live in harmony with it asOar as we possibly can. It is the special privilege of certain members of the Church, in virtue of their vocation, to practise this Liturgical life in its fullest manner. hut it is also within the capacity and competence of every layman to practise it in a limited way in his daily life. Variety of individual circumstances will dictate the degree in which each out practise it.
Fr. Flanagan's remarks on penance are particularly important. It is all too regrettable that so many souls of genuine goodwill worry themselves to death over preconceived plane of mortification and self-denial, while frittering away, unused, the innumerable opportunities for penance to he found in the hardship and trials of their daily lives. Because such tribulations are ordinarily inescapable, and form the warp and woof of our daily lives, they are part of God's manifest permissive will for us, What a pity to waste the opportunities for penance given us by God Himself, while we vainly map out dubious plans of our own. And if God desires of us any further penance than this. He will, as Fr. Flanagan notes, make it quite clear to us.
Equally important. and in fact
never to be forgotten. is Fr. Flan* gag's urgent counsel that we should appeal to Mother Mary to obtain for us this grace of " sanity" in the practice of our faith.
It is indeed beyond doubt that all
too many Catholics are either ignorant of or indifferent to the wonderful opportunities of sanctity offered them by their "living faith," and with the ever-increasing need for saints in the modern world. not to speak of the motives for sanctity to be found in meditation upon God Himself, Fr. Flanagan's article can only be hailed with the utmost gratitude.
C. O'Doherty.
372 Griffith Ave., Glasnevin, Dublin.