Testimony of faith: a deep certainty

Before my studies, I had no total membership in faith. I wanted to be sure that God existed, and I was waiting for an obvious sign, a proof to believe. I had never felt his presence, unlike other young people met in the camps in which I participated. I knew the words of faith, but without understanding its meaning internally.

At 19, I studied in philosophy the “demonstration of the first engine”. It is a philosophical argument of the existence of God according to which there is necessarily an first source of movement, motionless and perfect, at the origin of all the others, which one can name “God”. Even if modern philosophical currents generally disqualify the validity of this demonstration, formulated in the 13th century by Saint Thomas Aquinas, I understood it. And the Catechism of the Catholic Church comforted me. He indeed affirms the capacity of reason to access the certainty of the existence of God: “Human reason (can) really by his natural forces and light achieve a true and certain knowledge of a personal god” ( n ° 37).

From there, I was able to truly trust. Today, my spiritual life is based on this intellectual click. I go to mass, I pray to show my love to a god that really exists. It has become logical to do so, like brushing your teeth every night. I no longer ask myself the question of “why I do it”. It is the strength of intellectual conversion: my faith does not vary according to what I feel. I have a deep certainty.

One of my favorite verses of the Bible is this word of Jesus: “Father, lord of heaven and earth, I proclaim your praise: what you hid from the wise and the scholars, you revealed it to toddlers (Luke 10, 21). Yes, what I understood philosophically and which allowed me to believe, the simplest already understand it.

God speaks to me by my reason, but the relationship with Him is not intellectual. What God wants is not a philosopher is a little one who loves him. Now I can say that I have a personal relationship with Jesus. He is permanently present, I can address him in all the little things in my life.