I can't give him scientific reasons as to why. I can't provide a philosophical argument to justify my belief, and Christian Apologetics is beyond my scope of knowledge. What I would tell him resides in my heart.
Yesterday in the Catholic tradition, my grandson Nikolas received his First Communion. He was one among several children to receive it that day.
According to the ritual of the Mass, the bread and the wine were presented to the priest to be blessed and transformed into the body and blood of our Lord. One of the communicants, a little girl, carried the bread and Nikolas carried the wine down the long aisle to the priest who waited at the altar. Even though he was apprehensive, Nikolas carried the glass vessel of wine carefully and cautiously with respect. He did it with dignity and import. He displayed an emerging sense of the Sacred.
His success is meaningful to me for reasons that reside in my heart.
So it is with the Resurrection. I believe in it for reasons that reside in my heart, Darius. And one of those reasons is my grandson Nikolas.
In the words of Pascal, "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know at all."
Your Grandnson is a handsome young lad and he will have a good family to show him the way.
ReplyDeleteMy answer to Darius is pretty simple for me Susie. I've looked here and there to find the meaning of what my life is about. I have found in my search that if you are of the Lord you will come to know the Lord. After all the things I put my parents through and not being a very good ammabassador for the Lord and I am still accepted is testament enough for me.
Well said, Jenni. This reminds me of the endearing words from the hymn Amazing Grace. Every time I hear this hymn I can't help but get choked up especially when it is played with bagpipes.
ReplyDeleteThe heart knows things that the naked mind can't always comprehend. This knowing is not easily put into words. Poets struggle to do it and the fact that they do struggle is an indication of how difficult it is.
The spiritual is to be experienced, not analyzed to the point that it loses its meaning which is often the case when those who want to know the truth seek it only with their minds. A product myself of today's world where rational thought reigns supreme, it took me years to come to this realization.
God bless you Jenni.
Susie, I think you point to what might be summarized as three important sources of belief – sources not only for belief in the resurrection, but for holding any religious belief.
ReplyDeleteThe first is a sense of tradition, including being able to pass it on to your children and grandson. The second is participation in a faith community – and pretty much any such community, especially in Western traditions, is going to be belief-centered. The third is that belief in the resurrection makes life meaningful for you, and the comment here from iq seconds that motion...
As you point out, these aren’t reasons for belief. I would characterize them as powerful motives to believe, and add that you aren’t the only believer that isn’t able to offer compelling reasons. I think no one can. Here are a couple things that suggest as much.
First, people don’t become Christians when someone presents them with such compelling logic and argumentation that they end up saying – “Oh yeah, I see what you mean… don’t know what I could have been thinking not to believe that Jesus was God resurrecting in the flesh!” Second, people raised in other belief-traditions, like Islam and Judaism, are in exactly the same position as believing Christians. They believe, yet are unable to offer reasons that others find compelling.
I would disagree with Pascal and say rather that the heart has no reasons, and doesn’t need any. And I mean that in a postive sense, having a heart myself.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment to my blog, with its very good question indeed which I'm about to try and answer...
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" There is no one who seeketh after God, because we are all fallen creatures, sinners from birth. It is God who initiates this encounter with us. He said in the Holy Scriptures: "You didn't choose me I chose you". He is the One who draws us to Hm". Our problem today is that even Christians are Bible illiterate. We must read The Scriptures to know God and to understand His ways.The Bible is God's Word.
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