Why do you love your parents?
Your question is such a basic and important that it is like being asked ‘Why do you love your parents?’
Spending time before Mass praying for you and asking the Lord how I could best reply to you, I found part of the answer, I think, in the words of St Paul: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel - not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed (Gal 1:6-9).
In other words, St Paul is so convinced of what he preaches that he tells the people of Galatia not to listen to him if he ever preaches something else.
Another passage of St Paul came to my mind also: But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor 15: 10-22).
Here St Paul is telling us a number of crucial things. One is that at the heart of our faith as Christians is our faith that God became Man in the person of Jesus Christ, that He died for us and rose from the dead. If this didn’t happen then our lives are pretty meaningless.
St Paul also reminds us that everything he has and does is by ‘the grace of God’. The word ‘grace’ means ‘gift’.
We Christians share one basic aspect of faith with both believing Jews and Muslims: we believe in one God. However, Christians believe in a God who is Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And only Christians believe that God became Man. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son, became one of us, took on the whole human experience, except for sin. Yet He took on himself the burden of our sin, most of all on Calvary.
Our faith is a gift from God. Many have not received this gift, including people of good will.
Here is something Pope Benedict XVI said about this on 30 November 2005:
‘St Augustine . . . introduces a surprising and very timely note: he knows that there are also people among the inhabitants of Babylon who are committed to peace and to the good of the community, although they do not share the biblical faith; the hope of the Eternal City to which we aspire is unknown to them. Within them they have a spark of desire for the unknown, for the greater, for the transcendent: for true redemption.
‘And Augustine says that even among the persecutors, among the non-believers, there are people who possess this spark, with a sort of faith or hope, as far as is possible for them in the circumstances in which they live. With this faith, even in an unknown reality, they are truly on their way towards the true Jerusalem, towards Christ.’
In other words, every person who is honestly searching for the truth is moving towards Christ. However, Jesus has given us the responsibility of preaching the Gospel to everyone: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age (Mt 28: 19-20).
This means that it is our responsibility to tell others about Jesus, his life, death and resurrection and that through him all people are saved. However, it is God who gives the gift of faith.
It also means that it is wrong to hold that ‘one religion is as good as another’. It’s not like choosing between ube and chocolate ice-cream. If we believe that Jesus is God who became Man and died for us on the Cross, how can we say that it doesn’t really matter whether or not He died for us? And how can we say that our faith is not the most important issue of our lives if God loves us so much?