Novena of Grace (Day 5 & 6) Year A

Today is the 6th day of the Novena of Grace and here I am with this unenviable task of addressing three groups of people. The first group is the Elect. The second are those who are faithfully fulfilling their Sunday obligation. Finally, the third is a small group who have devotedly attended the novena since 4th of March. My apologies, you will probably hear part of the homily from yesterday. I shall speak to all you groups consecutively and also simultaneously.

First, for the Elect, the day of your Baptism looms near. Why do we have the raising of Lazarus as the Gospel for this 3rd Scrutiny? I shall follow the principle of lex orandi lex credendi (how the Church prays is what the Church believes in) in explaining the importance of what we are doing. The prayer goes like this:

Father of life and God not of the dead but of the living, you sent your Son to proclaim life, to snatch us from the realm of death, and to lead us to the resurrection. Free these Elect from the death-dealing power of the spirit of evil, so that they may bear witness to their new life in the risen Christ, for he lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

The prayer basically tells us that you, our beloved Elect, have journeyed thus far and now you are like Martha who affirms readily what you have come to know: "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world”. By so doing, you admit that you recognise the truth of Christ and are asking to be admitted to the communion of believers.

The raising of Lazarus is basically centred on the theme that Jesus is the Lord of Life. The resurrection which we will celebrate on Easter makes sense when we see Jesus at work to bring life in the midst of death. The first reading describes the exile of the people to Babylon in terms of death. Their subsequent return is described in terms of resurrection or spiritual renewal. The second reading tells us that the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is the same Spirit that lives in us. The Gospel tells us that by raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus shows that he is Lord of life and death.

On all account, the raising of Lazarus is a stunning display of the power of Jesus over death. Yet, for some, it remains an account which leaves them struggling with the scientific possibility of it ever taking place. Since the raising of Lazarus is closely associated with the belief in the resurrection, many hagiographies, that is, the accounts of the lives of saints, will also contain incidents of saints performing the miracle that Jesus did. For example, we find that during the brief stint of his stay in Malacca, Francis worked a number of such miracles. He called to life from the grave a girl who had been buried for three days. He also called to life a boy, Francis de Chaves, who later became a Franciscan and died a missionary in China.

How do we respond to the miracle of the raising of Lazarus and to the reports of Francis Xavier performing such miracles? In general, what place do miracles, that is, events beyond natural explanation, have in our faith?

For some of us, our response is that we live in at least two worlds. Sometimes both these worlds co-exist peacefully in some kind of mutual toleration. These two worlds are of faith on the one hand and the other of the hard world of facts supported by science. It would seem that our scientific mindset is somewhat at rest when we hear of the account of the raising of Lazarus, the son of the widow at Nain and the daughter of Jairus, etc. We accept these accounts based on the fact that we believe that Jesus is the Son of God. As Son of God, he could perhaps, suspend the law of nature. We make exception for Jesus because He is God. But, in the case of St Francis or any other saints, further away from the time of Jesus, perhaps our scientific mind may not be so kind and we may dismiss these hagiographical accounts as embellishments used to support the cause for canonisation of a particular saint.

The miracle of the raising of Lazarus and our celebration of the novena becomes an occasion for us to reflect on how we understand the phenomenon of miracles, and what sort of roles do they play in the relationship between faith and reason.

How can we reconcile what we believe with what we know to be of positive science? First of all, nothing in science disproves the existence of miracles. If that be the case, then what accounts for these separate schizophrenic worlds we inherit? Part of our explanation lies in the period called the Reformation. The early Protestant Reformers confined miracles to the apostolic age. They believed in miracles but they do not believe that miracles continue beyond the age of the Apostles.

Another part of our explanation is found with the onset of the scientific age where our perception of reality is restricted by experimentation. The rigour of experimentation namely through the laboratory is to ensure that results can be verified through repetition. It means that if something cannot be repeated, it probably is not true. Thus, it is not difficult to banish miracles or any unnatural phenomenon into the realm of the superstition, the realm of the Ripley’s “Believe It or Not”.

Whether we agree or not, we are children of this rejection. We live in a world of cold, hard facts. The charismatic experience of possession for example is easily classified as belonging to the world of superstition. After all we have psychology (which is part of the cold hard world of science) to explain a pathology or illness. What is “possession” is diagnosed as mental illness. Sometimes, the charismatics are brushed off patronisingly as “crackmatics”.

Thus, if we encounter the miraculous, in order to go about with life, we sometimes have to suspend our logic. You still hear people say “You believe when you do not understand” or “faith is when reason cannot explain”. In short, we live as if faith and reason were separated by a divide—a chasm or a gulf that reveals a crisis not of faith itself but rather a crisis of faith and reason, a crisis that severs reason from faith. In this divide, miracles, along with that, our mysteries and our sacraments are banished to the realm of the superstitious.

But, miracles are important because miracles are actually fruits of our faith. As long as there is faith, there will be miracles. Think about it. Miracles are proofs that we believe. But, as I said earlier, because we are somewhat “scientifically” conditioned, miracles are not fruits or proofs of our belief but rather miracles are reduced to proofs for our belief. In a way, we use miracles to justify our belief. That means that miracles still remain outside our normal experience and as such, they are extraneous to our faith. Faith and reason remain divided.

The Church though, has always taught that no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist—between faith and reason. The Catechism says that "Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of the faith derive from the same God" (CCC 159). John Paul II in the encyclical Fides et Ratio, sort of paraphrase this. He says that the search for wisdom is actually the implicit search for Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Therefore, whenever reason operates correctly and in accord with its very nature, it will always find itself open to the transcendent even in the absence of divine revelation.

In short, the Pope is saying that reason, a faculty of the intellect, when correctly exercised will not exclude faith. Faith is the context for natural science and is relevant to our quest for knowledge. There is a unity between faith and reason which means that, the world and all that happens within it, including history and the fate of peoples, are realities to be observed, analysed and assessed with all the resources of reason, but without faith ever being outside of the process. Faith intervenes not to abolish reason's autonomy nor to reduce its scope for action, but solely to bring the human being to understand that in these events it is the God of Israel who acts. Thus, the world and the events of history cannot be understood in depth without professing faith in the God who is at work in them. Faith sharpens the inner eye, opening the mind to discover in the flux of events the workings of Providence. Faith leads reason to discover the miracles of God acting in the world.

This evening as we pray for our Elect to come to a deeper knowledge of Christ who is the resurrection and the life, we pray that, like them, we may be able to see beyond a reason constricted by science to the miracle of God acting in our world and for our world. Let the quest for knowledge be always guided by the heart of faith. As long as we believe, miracles will continue to take place. The title of the song by Witney Houston and Mariah Carey says “You will when you believe”. And the lyrics support what St Augustine himself said: Unless you believe, you will not understand. Unless you believe, your reason is crippled. Unless you believe, miracles will not be seen.

The problem for many of us is that we often believe it for others. We believe in the resurrection but only as a theory. It is when we come face to face with death especially of a loved one that our faith in the resurrection is tested and purified. You see, when a person we love dies, we often live as if there were no hope of the resurrection, that is, when we allow grief to grip us beyond what is necessary. This is where I think those of us who come for the novena must pray for this grace to live in the joy of the resurrection because the power of death over the living is great. That is why adoration before the Blessed Sacrament is really good because it provides us an antidote to the cynicism that arises from our reaction to death. But, it is not just physical death that challenges us to trust God. It is deaths in many and varied forms that challenges us: wars, excessive spending on arms race, vicious political witch-hunt, corruption, violence in the family, against women and children. These are deaths which challenges us to believe that Jesus is still the resurrection and life. We may want to linger at the grave longer than it is necessary but if we look up, we will find the Christ who has broken the chains of death. He is life everlasting.