Meeting 2 - Personal Experience of Faith¶
Meeting Goal¶
This is to be a sharing meeting. We want to enrich each other with our lives. You should as much as possible direct to share what is now… not “a few years ago” or “how we would like someday”! In this way we want to emphasize the nature of faith – it has different stages, these stages should not be judged. Faith is life here and now, not melancholic returns or pious dreams.
Speaking more directly: one cannot lead to common complaining or a concert of wishes that will not transform us here and now.
Introduction for the Animator¶
The meeting is not simple because the people in our group probably do not know each other very well, and we are touching on the most intimate topic possible. You should approach these people with great humility and respect! Get rid of any thinking like “do the job”, and instead strive to be delighted by the testimony of another human being. We “impose the character” of this meeting through attitude, personal testimony. Let’s not count on the fact that people, whom perhaps someone asked certain questions for the first time at this retreat, will want to talk about things that have been moved in them (and us) on their own. Great sensitivity and intuition are needed…
The worst thing you can do is ask a person a fundamental question, arouse joy in them that someone really asked them about such an important thing, and then pay no attention to them being absorbed by the thought of how to ask the next question so that the meeting is “cool”!
(if any of the animators felt offended by reminding about such basic matters, I declare that I wrote this not for the sake of moralizing, but for the sake of myself.)
Initial Prayer¶
Adapted to the possibilities of the group.
Introduction¶
All yesterday we wondered what faith actually is. Perhaps questions have already appeared in us “are we believers ourselves?”, or “believers in what/whom?”, or “how much are we believers?” If this happened, it is a very good sign – from “theoretical” considerations we naturally pass to questions about concrete life. This is the goal of the whole day today, in a special way of this group meeting – the faith of a concrete person… my faith!
From this assumption results the character of this meeting – not discussion, inquisitive, but sharing. This is a significant raising of the bar – it is easy to talk “about some faith”, definitely harder about yours.
Before such a task, let’s establish quite clear rules at the very beginning:
silence during a question is also a valuable answer,
whether this meeting will be fruitful for all of us depends on what I say,
we are not looking for “correct answers” but we share what we experience, wise books are to serve our life, not our life books
What Does Our Faith Look Like?¶
(basic sharing method of this meeting)
Each participant receives the following sheet:
“matters” in which we can believe like children |
1…………………………………………………………….. |
2…………………………………………………………….. |
3…………………………………………………………….. |
4…………………………………………………………….. |
5…………………………………………………………….. |
6…………………………………………………………….. |
“matters” that constantly raise doubts |
We ask to fill it in, trying to remind that we are asking about the present moment. Let’s inform immediately that although this is very personal work, by assumption we will share what we wrote! This does not mean that we are now to “lie to ourselves” not writing something… let’s write it down, and then just say that “there is something here, but I don’t want to read it out loud”.
We share the experience (for now without reading the whole!):
Which matters were easier for you to list, those from the top or from the bottom? Why?
Did you focus on things directly concerning God?
Which of these things do you think someone else from the group could write (with which you expect others also struggle/rejoice)? Which of these matters do you expect are “eminently Yours”? (do not skip this question because we refer to it later!)
We read the effect of our work in terms of searching for similarities and differences. We try to sensitize to searching for God’s action and Plan for us.
Did what you heard surprise you? Why?
Did you happen to feel “worse” because you had “such things” as raising doubts?
About Doubts¶
Yesterday we saw how broad the concept of Faith is. In particular, it contains these matters “coming easily” and “causing constant questions”. Naturally, the question arises: how to relate to one and the other. Let’s deal with the latter for now.
Let’s think about the nature of doubts. Very often we try to run away from them… It seems to us that they are a symptom of something bad, for example, a lack of faith. Let’s throw the following statement against such thinking:
For doubts to arise in me, the problem must be important to me at least in some aspect. To doubt whether someone is telling the truth, I must care at least a little about what they are saying. The more a matter concerns me, the more accurately I would like to investigate how it presents itself in reality. Thus, the Latin proverb rightly says that dubitando ad veritatem pervenimus – «doubt is the way to truth». The ability to accurately formulate doubts about our experiences and convictions, opinions, descriptions and hypotheses reaching us, helps us separate truth from falsehood, and also leads to asking questions thanks to which we can know the truth deeper and wider.”
—Fr. Jacek Salij
Let’s ask:
What to do to experience doubts as an authentic gift? (drill and do not allow generalities!)
Do we experience doubts that concern us in such a way?
Was there such a moment in your life when stronger faith was born from doubts? Which one? (here your personal testimony may be of great importance…)
Doubts are a “present”! God giving doubts probably has his purpose in this and it is a “harbinger” of some of His transformation of our heart!
We must constantly question our faith, ask whether we entrust it to the true God or to idols we create for ourselves.
“Constantly”! It is a normal, everyday element of faith. To run away from it means running away from mature faith (often under the pretext of looking for “true” faith…).
THERE IS NO faith without doubts.
Has anyone ever testified before us with their faith not of a “hero” but such a human one, full of unanswered questions, waiting for them?
Profession of Faith¶
Note
(apogee of this meeting)
Before us is the most important moment of this meeting. In a moment we will stand up and pray together confessing our faith. Keeping the form of spontaneous prayer starting with “I believe”, and ending with the word “amen”, which we will all repeat. For example “I believe that Jesus….. Amen”. Of course, you can say more than one invocation. In this way we want to share our faith with ourselves and God, here and now, as it is.
What to Do with This Situation?¶
A sentence from the Holy Scripture that seems to be a model for us:
I believe; help my unbelief!
—Mk 9:24
Let’s ask:
What do these words mean? How could they be said differently depending on the context? (let everyone answer! Example: “I believe, Lord, but only You yourself can un-cramp my soul, which is afraid to trust You completely!”)
Can I relate these words to my life of faith? In what way?
Conclusion¶
We asked earlier about “typically our” matters in faith! The faith of each of us is something unique. There are “features” of our spirituality that seem particularly given to us. Let’s try to think about what in our faith is “ours”! We try to describe/present to each other our personal faith.
Faith is a great mystery… difficult to describe and put into words. We have already shared it with each other in word (beginning of the meeting) and prayer (a moment ago). Christianity, however, from the very beginning used symbols in passing on faith. They are best suited to reflect the character of faith. Let’s recall beautiful churches and paintings – it is nothing but an expression of the faith of our ancestors. We ourselves will also try to present our faith in such a way – using a symbol. It can be a picture, a graphic sign, an appropriate arrangement of letters…. anything.
Each participant takes notes on their cards, the animator puts a large card in the middle with the inscription “Faith”. After waiting a few minutes for the concept, we all draw our symbol on the card together.
We look at them for a moment, with curiosity. Then we try to “guess” what mystery each picture tries to convey… each time at the end the author explains his intentions.