Face to face with Christ
- SERVANT OF GOD CATHERINE DE HUECK DOHERTY
When we ask for faith it seems we are, as it were, turning our face toward his face.
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It seems that God desires this very simple action to happen so that he and we are face-to-face! He wants to look at our face; he loves to see our face facing him. Yet so often we avoid this simple act. Even while we beg him for various favors, we somehow close not only our physical eyes but the eyes of our soul, strangely avoiding looking at him. But we need to remember that he always looks at us, looks at us with deep love.
Faith is that God-given gift that has healed so many who believed in God; the leper, the blind man, the woman with the issue of blood, the servant of the Roman soldier — and millions of others who are not mentioned in the Bible or outside of it.
Faith — the father of love and of hope, as well as of trust and confidence. Faith — that sees God's face in every human face. As it grows and as we pray and beseech God for it, faith identifies us with Christ. Faith heals by asking God to heal. Faith heals others because of the faith I have in the Lord.
Faith walks simply, "childlikely," between the darkness of human life and the hope, the knowledge through faith, of what is to come. "For eye has not seen nor ear heard what God reserves for those who love him" (cf 1 Cor 2:9)
Faith — an incredible, fantastic realty, untouchable, unweighable. Faith — contact between God and man. In faith the eye of God meet the eyes of man, until there is such a little veil between us and the reality that is God, it seems we can almost touch him.
Faith breaks barriers. Faith makes out of love a bonfire. Faith is contagious when shown by any one of us to the other.
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Acknowledgement
Catherine Doherty, CM. "Face to face with Christ." from Re-Entry Into Faith: "Courage — be not afraid". (Combermere Ontario: Madonna House Publications, 2012)
Reprinted with permission of Madonna House Publications.
This excerpt appeared in Magnificat in May 2013.
The Author
Catherine de Hueck Doherty († 1985), born in Russia, established the Friendship House in Harlem, New York, in 1938, and later the Madonna House in Combermere, Canada. She is author of Grace in Every Season, Soul of My Soul Coming to the Heart of Prayer, Dear Father, Living The Gospel Without Compromise, An Experience of God Identification with Christ — a Road to the Mystical Life, and Catherine de Hueck Doherty: Essential Writing.