Dear Joe:

Every miracle in the Bible that I can think of at the moment, except for Creation, required the participation of the people. The Red Sea was not "just parted"; Moses, in faith, had to raise his staff and pray, then God parted the sea.

Perhaps the simplest way to illustrate this is to refer to a check written to you for $1,000,000. That check is meaningless unless you accept it and cash it. God grants gifts and miracles, but we must be ready to receive them and "cash them in" as it were.

This is a matter of free will. God will never intrude upon a person's free will. If a person chooses to be closed to the will of God and His glory they may do so. This is what happened when Jesus went back to his hometown. The people closed themselves off from God standing right before them.

While God can certainly act unilaterally, as He did in the Creation, it is His will and pleasure for us to participate in His glory. Thus, He asks us to participate with our faith in His actions. Faith opens the heart to receive God's gift.

The faith required can sometimes be a proxy faith on behalf of someone else. The faith needed for healing, for example, is not necessarily based upon the faith of the sick person, but upon other people sometimes who are praying for the healing. This is illustrated by the Centurion who came to Jesus in Matthew 8:5-10, 13:

As he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and heal him."

But the centurion answered him, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it."

When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. And to the centurion Jesus said, "Go; be it done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed at that very moment.

From this passage we learn that it was not the faith of the servant, but the faith of the centurion that moved Jesus to heal the servant. We also learn from this passage that healing can take place "long-distance". Jesus never went to the centurion's house but healed his servant from long distance. This is why we, in deliverance counseling, can pray for the healing and deliverance of our clients over the phone.

In Baptism of an infant, it is not the faith of the child, but the faith of the parents that brings the child to the kingdom of God.

The Devil wishes to destroy faith because he knows that if our faith is hampered, damaged, or destroyed we will be closed off to God's graces, even salvation. Thus, the devil works hard to attack our faith. He does this in thousands of ways from problematic TV shows, movies, music, games, amusements, errant philosophies, inappropriate curiosities, liberalism, rebellion, pride, unforgiveness, etc.

God gave us His Church, the Catholic Church with her Sacraments, to give us all that we need to maintain, grow, and invigorate our faith and thus assure our eternal friendship with Him.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary