In one of his sermons, Saint Augustine asked his congregation, "Do you believe?" And they answered, "Yes, we believe!" He told them: "Then live your faith and you have true faith." I used to think that this meant that I should make my life conform to the tenets of my faith. If I believe in life everlasting, I should not make this earth a permanent abode. If I believe that God became incarnate in Jesus, then I should respect and cherish all the flesh, that is, all the people sanctified by His presence and so forth. But then, ...
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In one of his sermons, Saint Augustine asked his congregation, "Do you believe?" And they answered, "Yes, we believe!" He told them: "Then live your faith and you have true faith." I used to think that this meant that I should make my life conform to the tenets of my faith. If I believe in life everlasting, I should not make this earth a permanent abode. If I believe that God became incarnate in Jesus, then I should respect and cherish all the flesh, that is, all the people sanctified by His presence and so forth. But then, one day, I realized that if to believe is to establish contact with God, then to live my faith is to be enlivened by that immeasurable source of life. Faith is like a switch between the little motor that runs my life and the Dynamo from which all power comes. To believe, to turn on the switch, is to be turned on, to be set in motion in the world. Living my faith means paramountly to let the divine energy flow through me. The details are secondary. They are a help to me to concentrate on the source of my inner life. But the important thing is to be the conduit through which the water Source tapped by faith flows freely into the world.
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