I believe in order to understand

"I yearn to understand some measure of your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand"

Anselm of Canterbury

I have heard many times at debates over when a child should first receive Communion, "But they are not ready, they do not understand". It is true many children may not understand, but how many of us can say  as adults we truly understand the mysteries of the Eucharist. A child in their innocence will believe whole heartedly in the sacrament. Just as Anselm said in the quote above, they believe in order that in the fullness of time they might understand. If only as adults we could quite so freely say "I believe" and mean it without any second thoughts.

One of the main differences between the East and the West churches, is that over the centuries the West has developed it's theologies through philosophy and the East through tradition and ritual. One seeks to find the answers by finding meaning through applying modern thoughts, the other through finding meaning in what it already believes. There are benefits and flaws to them both and has lead to two very different styles of Church with the same teaching at the centre.

One way or another we will seek to answer our questions as we get older. The ability to just simply accept what is, diminishes with more we learn. There is a caution in the Bible about this though, Eve sought more than she should. We can take the analysis of our Faith too far. We can seek to impose our own desires on God's words. We can make the teachings of Faith fit into our lives, rather than our lives fit into the teachings of our faith. Put another way, we seek to apply our understanding in order to believe, rather than believe to understand. 

Faith is a powerful and emotive subject. For us all it means something different, mainly because we are all different. It does at times seem remarkable that we can all agree on anything at all. However we do all have a creed on which we do all agree. It starts with those magic words "I believe". 

They really are fantastic words, at many points in our journey we say "I believe", in God, in Jesus, in the teachings of my Church.  Do we really honestly mean "I believe" or do we mean "I believe in God so far as this is what I would like my faith to mean" Tomorrow maybe we could try waking up and saying take the "understanding" and the "me" out and replacing it simply with "I believe". Take each encounter of the day in this frame of mind. So that when we meet the challenges of life, instead of thinking what is the minimum of what we can do within the realms of my faith, let us do the most our faith demands of us. We do not need to understand why, that will come with time. We do need to believe that is the right thing to do. If we believe with our whole hearts, then others will see Jesus in our hearts and in our lives and maybe just maybe take him out into theirs.