I posted on The Shins' song Young Pilgrims a bit ago, but Guy Crouchback took me to task for being too severe. And it's true, I was. There is a wistful yearning in the song, as though the band really wishes they could be one of the Faithful. Thinking it over, I realized that I don't have much patience for people who lack faith, having always had it myself. I temporarily chalked this up to my natural virtue, but the truth hit me in the middle of the coffee shop at Barnes and Noble yesterday.
Faith, hope and love are supernatural virtues, meaning that grace as well as habit is required for their formation. But we were created for union with God, which means we were intended to be always full to overflowing with these best of all attributes. Their loss is due to wounds, and these wounds cry out for healing.
How can one heal rifts through the very substance of one's being? Not through ratiocination. These wounds are healed through authentic experiences of beauty, goodness, and truth. Perhaps this is what St. Francis pointed to when he exhorted his followers to preach always, and only if they must, use words. The beauty and goodness of the life of the Christian are the best witnesses, and the best medicine. Words are only as strong as the meaning attached to them, and the wounded person has a false meaning attached to these words.
The happiest moment of my life was the moment when I realized that "good" is said of God, not because He happened to take that side of the opposition but could conceivably have taken the side of "evil," but because He is Good in the deepest and truest sense of the word, and it is not possible for Him to be evil: and that if it were possible, "good" would not really be good.
I needed to have my sense of "good" healed in order to love. A dear friend needed to see that beauty existed in order to start her journey toward faith. St. Augustine's conversion began with a struggle to understand good and evil (starting from being a Manichean) to believing in real goodness (Neo-Platonism) to finding true beauty in Christ (Confessions books 7-10).
It is heartbreaking to see loved ones struggling on without faith, hope, or love, and it would be so easy if a cleverly turned phrase were all that they needed to be made whole. In fact what they need is to be loved and accepted, always through prayer and if possible through companionship, while waiting for Love to come for them.
