Faith seems stronger when people are in need: our Lenten practice of fasting seems to point in this direction

Can Faith Survive in the “First World”?


David G. Bonagura Jr. 

“As incomes go up, steeples come down. . . .Happiness arrives and God gets gone.” Looking at the so-called first world, this assertion, on the whole, has some merit. Over the last few centuries, as our material and creaturely comforts have slowly multiplied, religious fervor within society has generally declined. Yet this decline has not happened to the same degree in less opulent parts of the world. Since the sweep of secularism within the first world seems to have coincided with material and technological advancement, it is fair to ask whether religious faith will survive in this climate.

This seeming incompatibility of faith and human comfort is not new. Our Lord himself announced this tension in a warning to all: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matt 19:24) This admonition followed Jesus’s advice to a rich young man, who chose to return sadly to his many possessions rather than follow Jesus.

 From the opposite perspective, faith seems stronger when people are in need. Ten lepers sought Jesus in their distress; once their needs were met, only one remembered to pay homage to his Healer. The heroic inspiration of martyrs has spurred faith in many believers during times of oppression. In our own day, Catholic churches at noon on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, were far more crowded than on the Tuesday prior or the Tuesdays since.

Even our Lenten practice of fasting seems to point in this direction. By fasting we deliberately deprive ourselves of food and other physical goods in order to spark spiritual growth. In the first week of Lent, we asked God that “through the chastening effects of bodily discipline, our minds may be radiant in your presence with the strength of our yearning for you.”

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