Newspaper Page Text
Supplement to The Georgia Bulletin, October 29, 1987
□ Faith Toda
A supplement to Catholic newspapers published by
NATIONAL CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
1312 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.
with grant assistance from
The Catholic Church
EXTENSION Society
35 East Water Dr., Chicago, Illinois 60601
All contents copyright© 1987 by NC News Service.
A caus
ration
By Father Eugene LaVerdiere, SSS
NC News Service
E verybody believes in
someone or something.
This is so true that it is
hard even to imagine,
let alone find, someone
who does not believe in anything.
The liberal sprinkling of most
casual conversations with “I
believe” statements, however, can
be misleading. Just because people
say “I believe” does not mean
they really believe.
Sometimes people preface a
statement with the words “I
believe” as a way of cushioning
what they say. Statements like “It
is going to rain” or “God is
good” are far more likely to
evoke a reaction, positive or
negative, than saying, “I believe it
is going to rain” or “I believe
God is good.”
This is what I call soft believing.
It amounts to little more than per
sonal opinion. In place of “I
believe” someone could just as
easily say VI think,” “I feel” or
“in my opinion.”
Believing is a far more serious
matter than mere personal opin
ion. This is where hard believing
comes in.
Unlike soft believing, hard
believing deals with basic values
and the very foundations of life.
Hard believing is the stuff of
religious faith and creeds.
□ □ □
Even religious faith and creeds
can be taken for granted — at least
much of the time. There are times,
however, when events force peo
ple to think about what they really
believe.
On the social front there are
wars, famines such as we find in
many parts of Africa today and
natural disasters like the great
floods in Bangladesh.
There are also personal ex
periences such as illness or the
death of a friend. Then there is
the simple experience of plunging
into an alien culture.
1 recall such a cultural ex
perience in Izmir, the ancient port
of Smyrna in Turkey. Smyrna is
but a few miles from Ephesus and
like Ephesus it was the site of a
Christian community way back in
the first century. Today it is a
Moslem city.
I had come to Smyrna with
three other students of the Bible.
We had put up in a small Turkish
hotel, recommended by a universi
ty student as a place where a Turk
of ordinary means would stay. We
were guaranteed an authentic
Turkish setting for our visit.
Once settled in, my companions
went out to scout the neighbor
hood. How close were the ruins of
the old city? Was there a
restaurant nearby? Where was the
main mosque?
A little later, 1 entered the tiny
lobby of the hotel and was greeted
in flowery French by a portly
middle-aged Turk: “Mv friend, the
proprietor of this establishment
would be honored if you would
respond to a few questions.”
I agreed. The proprietor, who
knew neither French nor English,
sat at a desk with a nervous smile,
looking at our foreign passports.
To my amazement, the questions
had to do with God. Better yet,
they had to do with the Trinity.
Never before had I joined in a
conversation about the Trinity in a
hotel lobby.
But there I was talking about
God — Allah, the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and
how God is Father, Son and Spirit.
The little lobby was soon filled to
overflowing with every face,
young and old, turning from me to
my interpreter and then to the
proprietor.
It took awhile and lots of back
and forth in French and Turkish
before I learned what was happen
ing. Finally it was over. The pro
prietor sat back, his face beaming.
His hotel guests, he had conclud
ed, were not infidels after all. Like
him, we believed in one God.
□ □ □
I realized then that the pro
prietor, a devout Moslem, had
been concerned that his Christian
guests, the first non-Turks to stay
in his hotel, believed in three
gods. In Arabic, Allah means “the
God.”
For the proprietor, the inter
preter and the neighborhood
crowd, this was very much a mat
ter of conscience. For me, it was a
matter of reflecting on what I real
ly believed and how best to ex
press my belief.
The realization called for
celebration. A snap of the fingers,
a word from the proprietor, and
tea and ripe olives appeared on
swinging trays. Our common belief
did, indeed, call for a celebration.
I cherish the memory of that
day. And I think of it sometimes at
the Eucharist when we reflect on
God’s work together and profess
our faith in the words of the
creed, that we “believe in one God.”
Yes, indeed, this does call for
celebration, eucharistic celebration:
“The Lord be with you.” Bring
the bread and wine.
(Father LaVerdiere is editor of
Emmanuel.)
In o hotel lobby in Turkey, Father Eugene LaVerdiere found
himself called upon to explain, of all things, the Trinity. "It took
awhile and lots of bock and forth in French and Turkish," Father
LaVerdiere remembers, before he realized what wos hap
pening. It seems the hotel proprietor, a devout Moslem, hod
been gravely concerned that his Christian guest believed in
three gods! In the end, they realized they shared a common
belief — indeed, a cause for celebration!