Seton Hall Magazine, Winter 2000 - Seton Hall University

At its most basic level, faith may be
defined as the acceptance of that
which we cannot prove. For many
of us, the experience of faith first comes
alive in a personal encounter. Looking
into the eyes of another, we experience
a reality that is beyond our ability to
perfectly measure or control; instead
we are invited to believe, to hope and
to love. The threshold to faith in God
is most often crossed by our faith in
another human being.
No matter how deeply immersed we
may become in the trivialities and tribulations
of our everyday experience, most
of us find our center of gravity in someone
we love. Think of the popular song
in which the singer tells us that he has
lost faith in everything but the woman
he loves: “There but for the grace of
you go I …”
Because we are embodied, we relate
to the world on a physical level, but we
want to share ourselves with others on
a level that is more profound than the
merely physical. We want to become
persons with spiritual qualities like sincerity,
honesty, sensitivity and generosity.
We do not want to be phony, deceitful,
uncaring or self-absorbed. We want to
develop the self-discipline to keep confidences,
to be loyal and to have insight
into why we think what we think and
say what we say and do what we do.
We want to relate to those we love on
a spiritual level.
The most important relationships of
our lives, the ones that help us grow the
most, like marriage and friendship, are
based on faith. We not only place our
trust in others, we do something more
than that — we entrust ourselves to
them. We have no proof that our spouse
will be true to us. We have no proof that
our friends will not betray us. Nevertheless,
we make these most vital decisions
of our lives not only on the basis of
investigation, observation or experiment,
but also on the simple act of believing
that another human being is sincere and
The Simple Act of Believing
BY REVEREND JAMES CAFONE ’61/M.A. ’67, S.T.D.
“The threshold to
faith in God is most
often crossed by our
faith in another
human being.”
trustworthy, worthy
of our faith.
There are friendships
and marriages
that begin in faith
but come to a sad
end precisely
because the partners
have lost faith in
each other. A relationship
may continue
to endure after
trust has been weakened,
but this is a
critical time: Real
love cannot long continue in existence
without hope and faith.
Our faith waxes and wanes, grows
strong or weak, as we live our lives. We
have periods of closeness and of alienation.
Sometimes we feel good about
ourselves and our friendships, and other
times we feel futile and hopeless.
Sometimes we feel close to God, and
sometimes we feel far away. The great
dance of life is animated by the presence
or absence of faith in another.
The ultimate Other is God.
In this time of passage from one millennium
to another, the future of faith
often seems deeply threatened, torn
between opposite poles of skepticism
and fanaticism. Many of our traditional
religious institutions are weakened,
dazed by the onslaught of sweeping cultural
change. On the other hand, some
have become energized with a terrifying
fervor fueled, it often seems, by hostility
or hatred. In the new millennium, where
F a i t h
can we find resolution to these seemingly
insurmountable difficulties?
In the Gospel of John, we learn the
stunning secret: “God is love.” The
grace of God in the entire universe,
the grace of God within us, is love.
Whenever our faith enables us to
bring real love to birth in this world —
generous, unselfish, long-suffering and
abiding love — we are dealing with a
reality that is given to us from above.
It is not merely a human reality but a
Divine presence, in fact, the presence of
God. Jesus puts it this way: “Whatever
you do to the least of my brethren, you
did it to me.”
Reverend James Cafone
’61/M.A. ’67, S.T.D., is
an assistant professor of
religious studies in the
College of Arts and
Sciences and minister
to the Priest Community.
WINTER 2000 29