The Look of Faith

At the moment when sickness or tribulations afflict us, we understand how everything in life is just like vain imagination. In consequence, all illusions fall, the artificial finery loses its luster, and we wake up to genuine reality although not without disappointment.

Without suffering, there is no wisdom. But tribulation is so bitter that we do not want to have anything to do with it so we turn our faces the other way.

The following generally happens: when the blows strike us by surprise, something like a cloud of emotional dust surround us, and we do not see anything. At that precise moment, it is difficult to look anything in faith simply because we do not see at first sight more than a cosmic fatality or human perversity. It appears to us that everything happens by chance, inexorably yet, and that behind the events there is nothing or no one.

But, after a certain period of time, by taking a reasonable distance and perspective, and taking the long view which is precisely that of faith, only then we begin to understand that what happened was a divine pedagogy and, deep down, a liberating predilection.

Extracted from the book The art of Being Happy by Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga