The Art of Faith

Linda Kracht affirms that, as with art, faith requires discipline, practice, and determination to achieve growth.

The art of following Jesus as a disciple demands a lot of us. Just as achieving excellence in a certain skill or profession requires much discipline, practice, and determination, so does the art of being faithful to Jesus. (Mother Mary Francis, quoted in When You Pray by Edward Sri)

I invite you to consider faith as an art. Like all other forms of art, our faith journey requires discipline, practice, and determination if we hope to grow and improve. This means making time to reflect on God’s Word daily, not just taking a minute here or there. It means reflecting on how God’s Word applies to my life. It means growing in love for God and His Word more and more. In turn, these actions turn us into authentic, deliberate, and earnest disciples of Jesus.

Mother Mary Francis’ quote caught my attention because of the connection between faith and art. Early in our marriage, we learned, practiced, and taught NFP (natural family planning). We were taught by a married couple who had obviously honed the skill of NFP: the knowledge of fertility and NFP and the discipline required to practice NFP. Their instruction was laced with references to Faith and authentic love of God and each other. The NFP book was titled The Art of Natural Family Planning by John and Sheila Kippley. There is that word, ART, again! Soon after learning the method, we realized why it was an ART. It required discipline and practice and awareness and knowledge of our God-given fertility. We were pleasantly surprised to discover how easily NFP harmonized with our faith and beliefs. We also realized that it involved sacrifice: another word associated with Jesus.

Art — the word — was also incorporated into the title of my first book, The Art of Breastfeeding, for similar reasons. Breastfeeding definitely required discipline, sacrifice, instruction, practice and determination.

The three different ARTS — faith, breastfeeding, and NFP — work synergistically with each other. They don’t fight each other; they don’t nullify the other; they aren’t envious of the other; they don’t detract from one another; they fully support faith and faithfulness to Jesus and our family members.

Here are some things to consider as you strive to advance in the art of faith:

Prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him. (CCC 2560)

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We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son. (John Paul ll, Homily for World Youth Day July 28, 2002)

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The sadness and the discouragement that we feel regarding our failures and our faults are rarely pure, they are not very often the simple pain of having offended God. They are in good part mixed with pride. We are not sad and discouraged so much because God was offended, but because the ideal image that we have of ourselves has been brutally shaken. Our pain is very often that of wounded pride! This excessive pain is actually a sign we have put our trust in ourselves — in our own strength and not in God. (Father Jacques Phiilippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace p. 58-59)

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When God sees that we have not surrendered ourselves to him, that we’re not truly relying on him, that we’re still trying to control everything, plan our lives on our own and not depend on him then God HONORS our freedom and leaves us on our own. But when we stumble, fall and realize how much we need his help, how much he must sustain us at every moment — when we surrender to the truth of how little we can do on our own and how very much we really do depend on God for EVERYTHING — then our heavenly Father will always rush to our assistance and carry us. (When You Pray, p. 51)

May you turn incorporate these thoughts into your life and fully turn your faith into an art. As they say, practice makes perfect. May you perfect yourself through practice, prayer, a holy attitude, a life of faithful consistency, and deliberate personal efforts worthy of your desire to become a daughter of God. God bless your pursuit of the art of faith.

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