How do we measure Faith?

Can we measure faith? Years ago, and probably still some do measure faith in the Catholic Church by how often one went to church, by whether or not a person had celebrated the sacraments, by how much they knew about Catholicism.

Two weeks ago, I spent 3 days in Kananaskis at the Blueprints Conference, an education administrator's conference. The speaker was Dr. Thomas Beaudoin, Catholic theologian, who is presently teaching at Fordham University in New York City. He challenged me to think of other ways a person's faith might be measured. He also challenged me to open my mind and my heart to other ways of practicing the Catholic faith than the traditional ways. He spoke of how people may not go to church every Sunday, and that these same people believed in Jesus and lived a faith-filled life, but may feel that they do not need to go to church to be fullfilled. He also stated that he loved going to mass and taking part in the Eucharist.

If I were to measure his faith according to what he was teaching, I would say that he had tremendous faith. He is living in an interfaith marriage, with a Jewish woman and he is raising his daughter as a Jew. He supports her in that he takes her to synagogue every week and is enrolling her in Hebrew school for the next school year. He wants her to be the best Jew she can be.

The only way I can describe Dr. Beaudoin is that he is Catholic enough and loves his wife and daughter with a love that allows them to live in this way.

There were several points he brought up that I will be talking about in future posts. Suffice it to say, that the three days I listened to Dr. Beaudoin had a great effect upon how I think.