Staking Everything on His Word

The Angelus by Jean-François Millet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.There was no explanation except the traditional one: such faith was a gift from God, as faith always is. God was a reality for these people, a reality they clung to and placed ahead of all other personal considerations. Their faith was to them, quite literally, a matter of life and death. They were willing to sacrifice everything else for it. It was not a matter of doctrines or rules or practices for these people; it was a matter of belief and deep conviction. To them, God was as real as their own father, or brother, or best friend. They turned to him in difficulties, trusted in him, feared his judgement of their failings, and stood ready to lose everything in the world rather than offend him.

No, they weren't perfect, either as people or as Christians; they weren't saints, but their faith was a matter of principle and of practice in their lives each day. They didn't talk about it, but you could observe it in the way they approached the problems of daily living, in the way they talked about things, in the way they thought and reacted on various occasions. It was a simple faith, direct and childlike, the sort of faith our Lord praised so explicitly in the Gospels whenever he encountered it; nowhere in Israel have I found faith like this, he said of the centurion, for example. That was how I felt here in the parish church of Krasnoyarsk.

Perhaps it was an old-fashioned faith. It centred for these people in the Church and the sacraments, in devotions and novenas and prayers. Perhaps it wasn't too sophisticated. ... But it was a faith that had been tested and purified in the fire of constant low-keyed persecution, had been attacked and ridiculed by atheist propagandists on all sides and at every level—and it had survived. It was too precious a thing to these simple people to be traded away in exchange for social advancement, a better job, or even in exchange for the best education for their children, whom they dearly loved. For them, faith was a way of life; it was at the centre of their life, of their day, and of all their actions. They probably could not have explained their beliefs very well if they tried, but it was there at the heart of their being; they believed in God and his Church. They trusted in him, turned to him in difficulties, gave thanks to him in moments of happiness, and fully expected to be with him for all eternity.