Then he said to his disciples,
“The days will come when you will long to see
one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.
There will be those who will say to you,
‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’
Do not go off, do not run in pursuit.
Christians must understand that faith, by definition, means that we continually experience the absence, silence, or invisibility of God. He does not make his presence obvious and undeniable except to those with "eyes of faith." He cannot be studied with critical, human sciences because faith, though it is both discerning and wise, is neither critical nor skeptical. Faith receives God with confidence and recognizes him in whatever manner he presents himself.
In the scriptures we find stories of God's appearances. He walked visibly with Adam and Eve. He appeared physically to the disciples on Easter, and forty days afterward. He was apparent to Abraham and Sarah, under the guise of three men, at the terebinth of Mamre. (And Abraham was clever enough to recognize him by their conversation.)
"...instructions through the holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God."
But God does not appear in many other places even in the Bible; Abraham was saved by faith, and not by his knowledge, as Saint Paul insisted. That is, not by sensory, scientifically measurable proofs.
The New Testament was well aware of the demand faith makes upon the disciples of Jesus, for they believed in him even as they met opposition, arrest, beatings, and martyrdom. The worse they were treated the more their confidence grew!
If they longed “...to see one of the days of the Son of Man," they clearly acted without that lovely vision, and often in the darkness of solitary confinement. (Think: John the Baptist in Herod's dungeon!)
"Do we see miracles?" someone asked me recently.
"Yes! All the time!" but a cynical, skeptical world refuses to see and believe even when their sciences tell them there is no "rational explanation" for what just happened. But that's not because they're only skeptical; it's because they have no faith. (And yes, we can be very skeptical about ridiculous claims some of our coreligionists make about their personal experiences of God.)
The challenges for Christians today are twofold: we see with the eyes of faith and we act in the light of faith, where others cannot see. We call that fidelity. (The word is an English derivative of the Latin fides, meaning faith.)
Today the Church celebrates the fidelity of Saint Josephat who practice his faith in God and God's Church in the face of a hostile Catholic mob. He had urged his flock to reconsider and reenter the Roman Catholic communion. He was far ahead of his time; and today we watch with great hope as Pope Leo XIV meets and prays with leaders of the Orthodox Churches toward an ever deepener communion in the Lord.
Josephat's martyrdom, like that of Jesus, will not be in vain.
