Faith is much more than Pure/Isolated God-Talk: Learning from Fr. Stan

These days we are grappling with faith in our classroom under the guidance of Fr. Stanislaus Swamikannu. Right in the start Fr. Stan made it very clear that faith basically is a genuine inter-personal relationship with God that goes through the regular dynamics of every human relationship: infatuation, mutual self-revelation, transformation/change and continual growth in love. 


In the first stage, infatuation, we get attracted to the other for one or more reasons and often times for no reason. We feel a pull towards the other that arise in us the curiosity to know the other, to be with the other and at times even to imitate the other. Driven by this pull, we begin to reveal ourselves to each other, thus we are lead into the second stage, mutual self-revelation. The relationship in this level grows deeper than initial attraction and external closeness. Sharing about oneself is surrendering oneself to the other. One begins to surrender oneself to the other, by a sincere and complete revelation of oneself. Gradually, the relationship transforms one-another, the third stage - transformation/change. We grow out of our old-selves and renew our life for growth. At times this confirms the authenticity of our relationship. Thereafter the relationship grows challenging, comforting, caring and loving each other for eternity! We enter the fourth stage, continual growth in love. How adventurous and enriching then our life of faith can be? Lord increase our faith.

One thing that needs to be noted here is that our relationship can never be compartmentalized like now I relate with God, now I relate with human being and then with cosmos etc. Every true relationship with God leads to an authentic relationship with fellow human beings and cosmos and vice versa. May be we are able to understand one, in this case faith, in terms of the other - human relationship, with ease, since they are so interlinked and knit together. Faith therefore is much broader than the usual humdrum of pure/isolated God-talk and Human relationship is much more human than as we usually conceive it.