“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1).
When Abram set forth into the wilderness for a place unknown, divesting himself of heritage and lands, he traced for mankind the radical journey of faith. Casting aside mortal security, he embraced faith’s obscurity, guided by the certainty of God’s call. Christ’s disciples likewise traveled faith’s enigmatic path on the road to Emmaus, progressing from human understanding to divine encounter, discovering the Lord beneath the sacramental veil.
Ever seeking the assurance of the senses, man is continually confounded by the hiddenness of God, whose nature transcends his every power. In our age of scientific materialism, many have permitted faith’s obscurity to slow or halt their spiritual progress, prompting their return to an empirical worldview. Others reach out in sincere belief but limit faith’s light to natural reason, reducing the mystery of God to man’s own measure. Still others proceed with supernatural faith but withdraw at the specter of suffering, demanding explanation. Desperate for a certitude that falls within man’s grasp, our culture needlessly suffers for want of total comprehension, misunderstanding the nature of faith.
The obscurity of faith, when rightly viewed, occasions man’s perfection as it prompts him to journey outside himself, striving beyond the limits of sense and reason. That is to say, motivated by faith’s certainty, man is drawn by its very darkness to quit himself and to rely upon God, becoming relational as God is relationship. Made in the image of the triune God, this radical movement of self-entrustment renews man’s likeness of him, which is best realized in the mystery of faith—that is, the mysterium fidei.
Few realities are as mysterious as faith itself, being both certain and obscure. It is said to be certain as it proceeds from the highest principle, God himself, but obscure as God’s light so infinitely exceeds our natural vision that it has a blinding effect on the soul. Furthermore, our fallen nature, wounded as it is by sin, is compromised in its ability to perceive the divine. Consequently, God’s essence and works remain ever greater than our ability to comprehend.
When Abram stepped into the wilderness, he was not simply met with consolation and blessing as so many modern spiritualities promise but was forced to exceed his own estimations, walking amid darkness and uncertainty. This unreserved extension of himself culminated on Mount Moriah where, in an act of complete self-effacement, he consented to offer his only begotten son, Isaac, in obedience to God’s word. Wholly subjected to him in self-sacrificial love, this radical act manifested Abraham and Isaac in profound donative relationship with God, reflecting the interpersonal dimensions—that is, the Trinitarian dimensions—of the paschal mystery.
The obscurity of faith, when rightly viewed, occasions man’s perfection as it prompts him to journey outside himself, striving beyond the limits of sense and reason.
Remarkably, Abraham’s dark night of faith, wherein he was drawn from self-reliance to total dependence on God, is a figure of the paschal mystery. Casting all mortal hopes upon the pyre of sacrifice, Abraham trusted wholly in the Lord’s resurrection, knowing his power and promise (Heb 11:19). So profound was his obedience that Abraham’s heart may be said to have been annihilated with the offering of Isaac and given to God. In this summative act of surrender, his identity as the father of faith was thus sealed.
When Christ announced the eucharistic mystery to astonished crowds, they were likewise plunged into obscurity, dividing those of faith from those bound by human estimations. The mystery of faith indeed proves central in evincing Christ’s disciples precisely because it is a “dark saying” (Ps 78:2)—a supernal word that does not make concessions to the flesh but feeds faith (cf. John 6:26—35), occasioning the self-seeking crowds to break from Christ and for the betrayer, Judas, to inwardly turn from grace (John 6:70—71). Peter, by contrast, assents but with obscure faith. His response is instructive. When asked if he will depart, Peter replies, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68—69). Crucially, Peter’s trust is no longer anchored in his own understanding but in the certainty of the person before him. Though Christ’s doctrine surpasses his reason—indeed, he has little practical knowledge of this promise—Peter assents, advancing in relationship and in knowledge and love.
If modern man desires a faith entirely within his reach—possessing the certainty of the senses and reason—it must be understood that this is not faith but self-chosen belief, proper to one’s own assessments. Here, man remains locked in a finite vantage point, unable to see beyond his personal biases. The virtue of faith, by contrast, allows us to see beyond the limits of natural reason and to venture outside of ourselves, becoming relational as God is relationship. Perfecting this movement, Christ gave himself to us in the mystery of faith that we might enter into his filial relationship of love, radically so, regaining our likeness of him.
At the institution of this great mystery, Jesus handed himself over with the words, “This is my body which is given for you” (Luke 22:19). This word, “given,” [διδόμενον] denotes self-donation or sacrifice. Though Christ himself did not possess faith but rather the blessedness of vision, this radical extension of himself flows from his superabundant charity and is connected to the annihilation of the cross. Stripped of all things and immersed in darkness, Christ, our exemplar, remained steadfast in self-giving love, commending himself into the Father’s hands. This, then, is the pattern of virtue: obedience to the Father’s will, even amid the eclipse of natural light, confident in the day of resurrection. The self-abnegating personalities of the Trinity are here manifest in the Father’s surrender of his son and the son’s offering himself in a cruciform expression of love. Furthermore, by our participation in this mystery of faith, Christ’s givenness may become our own.
Perseverance in faith’s obscurity is often most difficult during the keen experience of suffering: those heart-wrenching occasions that appear senseless to the mind. Yet it is life’s ruined architecture that makes for the kindling of the paschal fire, illumining the night with Christ’s light. For in the consuming flame of Christ’s sacrificial charity, all human suffering is redeemed and made incandescent. Contemplating the great paradox of Calvary, St. John of the Cross writes, “This was the greatest desolation, with respect to sense, that [Christ] had suffered in his life. And thus he wrought herein the greatest work that he had ever wrought, whether in miracles or in mighty works, during the whole of his life.” So too is it with the members of his body.
What appears most harsh and distasteful to us ever proves a privileged nexus of grace. Indeed, it is not comfort but tribulation that often stretches us beyond our limits, making us to depend on God in new and radical ways, producing much fruit. Though God never actively wills evil to befall us, he permits its trial to bring about astonishing virtue and unforeseen human flourishing. This is the tremendous mystery absent human understanding but apparent to the divine gaze. Commenting on God’s providence concerning life’s least events, Julian of Norwich writes, “For I saw truly that God doeth all-thing, be it never so little. And I saw truly that nothing is done by hap nor by adventure, but all things by the foreseeing wisdom of God.” Once we acknowledge life’s every detail as falling under providence, however hard, we may be assured of the intended good borne of it, joined to the redemptive mystery of faith.
Like those disciples traveling on Easter morning, we must waken to discover Christ’s hidden presence among us, directing and fulfilling our hopes. Those journeying to Emmaus well knew Christ’s works but were limited to human perspectives. Led by an obscure Guide, they progressed from earthly knowledge to those mysterious depths hidden from flesh and blood. Struck by the verity of his person, they were led by a path they knew not to arrive at a graced perspective of the Messiah—a reality manifest before them in the mystery of faith. In this way, those early disciples came to recognize the providential workings of grace amid the dark night of trial.
Our call is much the same as those traveling to Emmaus as we walk in faith, failing vision (2 Cor 5:7). Modern man must not restrict his knowledge to those things found within the confines of his reason, lest he become trapped within himself. He must journey out, daring to depend on the divine Other, singing with St. John of the Cross:
O, guiding night;
O, night more lovely than the dawn;
O, night that hast united
The lover with His beloved,
And changed her into her love.
The obscurity of faith, so keenly felt in the providential mystery of suffering, cannot be an occasion for our falling back upon our own judgments; for all such realities are met in the mystery of faith, which draws us from ourselves and overcomes every ill. Indeed, the mystery of faith is a mystery of love, guiding us to become relational as God is relationship. It is the proof and means whereby we most excellently manifest faith, renewing our likeness of God.