When I was about six years old, I had my first real experience with Faith with a capital “F”.
It was a dark and stormy night (really, it was!) and my mother was suddenly and violently struck with a crippling headache that caused her to collapse and momentarily lose consciousness. I remember hearing urgent words I didn’t understand, like “aneurism” and “stroke” being spoken into the phone in the next room, and recall suddenly becoming invisible as members of the household rushed past me, around me and over me to help. I was just a kid and I was scared and confused about what was happening to my mom.
Being from a Catholic family and having just started grade 1 at the local parish school, Our Lady of Lourdes, I did the only thing I felt was available to me—I prayed. I knelt down next to my mother and prayed to Saint Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes for my mom get better—she did. At that time and for many years to come, I believed that my prayers had saved her. It was my quiet devotion and faith that really helped my mother in her time of need. Listening to heroic stories of sacrifice such as that of St. Bernadette and her visitations by the Virgin Mary in the small French town of Lourdes, made an impression on six-year-old me and capital “F” faith would take root in my young consciousness and thrive for many years to come.
I related to young Bernadette—a child, a poor peasant-girl whom no one would believe or validate regardless of how convincing her story might have been. Being powerless, like Bernadette was, causes us to grasp for anything that might give us the feeling of support, strength or advocacy. Being poor, sick, rural, in some cases female, very young or very old places many of us in that very situation. Though having a Catholic education for much of my life didn’t hurt, feeling vulnerable and disenfranchised in my life nurtured the concept of Faith, even as I matured and began to question the authorities that governed what I like to call “faith-delivery-systems”—also known as religion.
As an adult I gradually began to think of myself as non-religious and found myself, on more than one occasion, giving the stock answer of “I believe in God, but I’m not religious” when asked about my spiritual beliefs. It was as though being older and educated meant faith with a small “f” fit more easily into my now less naïve worldview. Small “f” faith is attractive because it allows for scrutiny of religious principles; like the ideas of temptation, original sin and martyrdom–the absolution of sin through someone else’s sacrifice–all of which infantilize the individual and maintain him or her under the constant and perpetual “parenting” of the institution which conveniently mediates the relationship between the individual and the unseen God.
Small “f” faith allows for these ideas to be deemed powerless by basic logic while still allowing a certain amount of surrender to those same principles. Small “f” faith allows for the blending of many different concepts of religious practice without adhering to the dogma of any one. The non-religious try to have the best of all worlds—untested belief as well as evidence-based knowledge wrapped in an all-inclusive and multifaceted idea of divinity. After all, faith in its more canonical and traditional form makes people intolerant of the rights of others and oppressive to those who do not share the same faith—seeking converts, and seeking to change people. Bigotry, hypocrisy, corruption, and zealousness all swirl around the proponents of big F faith. In short, I viewed big “F” faith as a kind of luxury that I, as an educated and reasonably intelligent person couldn’t afford.
Flash forward to March 2006. Once again I find myself at my mother’s bedside praying. This time it’s colon cancer. As I sat there listening to the doctor go over treatment options all I could think of was St. Bernadette and how once again, I was helpless. I remember telling my mom that when all of this was behind us, I owed her a trip to France to visit Lourdes. Even in her weakened state, her eyes flashed with conviction as she nodded and said, “yes, sweetheart, we will go.” It became clear to me that the faith I was experiencing and sharing with my mother at that moment was not the contradiction I once thought it was. Just as her faith allowed her to draw strength from God in her time of need, I was drawing strength from her—more accurately, from her faith.
One year later, my still recovering 76-year-old mother and I were checking into a simple hotel in Lourdes, France. As we got down to the street we joined the hundreds of people making their way to where St. Bernadette first saw the Virgin Mary and where now stands a beautiful cathedral called The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. For every person walking with us there was a story of Faith, just like ours. In our time of need, each of us experienced the feeling of calm wash over us as we released our troubles and grabbed onto the hope that Faith provided.
Walking into the cathedral at Lourdes, I allowed the stillness that echoed within the gilded domed ceilings to silence my logical mind and give way to humble faith. Though faith may seem like an antiquated notion in the information age, faith, as I discovered, is not so much a luxury but a noble human quality. It taps into human resolve like nothing else can and has the power to unite as much as it has the power to divide. Like any other tool of human making, it can be used to do good or cause harm depending on its application. Many other people we met at Lourdes, like my mother, had overcome great obstacles because of their faith.
As many more faithful continued to enter the cathedral and take their seats in preparation for mass, the hushed whisperings of prayers filled the incense-thick air and I let big “F” Faith comfort me. As I sat with my mother, filled with gratitude for her recovery, I reflected on how my Faith had once again not let me down. No matter what religion or frame we decide to place around it, faith resides in the human spirit, not in the walls of an institution, and is the Divine within us. As I reach out to St. Bernadette I see her vulnerability and her strength and let her remind me that it will all be okay.
