Faith and Feelings

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 06, 2025

“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’” (Lk 17:5) Faith is not a consoling feeling; faith is a choice with God’s grace; faith is obedient to God’s revelation; and faith overcomes fear.

Faith is a supernatural virtue by which, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the things which He has revealed are true, not because of the intrinsic truth of the things perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. (Vatican I, Dei Filius, Chapter 3)

The reliable authority of the Church is essential to faith. A deliberate clerical lie assaults the Church’s authority and undermines faith. However, the Church has a remedy for doctrinal misstatements and lies: Authentic teaching authority aligns with Sacred Tradition and Scriptures. Allowing for the give-and-take of healthy theological speculation, ask: What has the Church always taught?

Faith is a choice with God’s grace, not a feeling.

Mary was conceived without sin. As the Mother of God, she was ever blessed and sinless. Yet Mary was not spared from the grief of witnessing the suffering and death of her Son. Mary smelled the rotting flesh of Golgotha. Mary witnessed His horrible suffering. Despite her anguish, suffering failed to ruin her faith.

Mary alone knew with certainty how her divine Son entered into the world. Mary alone knew that this crucifixion could not, would not be the last word. Mary’s faith at the foot of the Cross flawlessly linked the Old Testament and the New.

God’s consolations are wonderful gifts. But Mary’s pure faith and terrible anguish as she suffered with Jesus reveal that the absence of warm feelings is not a faith crisis. Suffering is a call to increase our obedient resolve in loving union with Jesus. The Apostles and the teaching Church hand on Mary’s faith rooted in love.

Faith is free and obedient.

Abraham is our “father in faith.” God’s promises—that Abraham would be the father of many nations—depended upon his child, Isaac. Faith for the heroes of the Bible was not merely an intellectual assent; it involved unreserved obedience to God’s will. In obedience, Abraham placed the wood for sacrifice on Isaac’s shoulder. And Isaac would carry that wood up the hill for the sacrifice. A wood which would prefigure the wood of the Cross, which the Son of the Father would carry upon His shoulders up the hill of Golgotha.

Shortly before the sacrifice took place, Isaac asked his father where he would find the sacrificial offering. Abraham replied, in terrible anguish, with prophetic words, words that anticipated Calvary: “the Lord Himself will provide the sacrifice.” When Abraham raised his hand to slaughter his son, an angel of the Lord stayed his hand. Abraham thus proved that in obedience to God, he would not even spare his only son.

In his anguish, Abraham prophetically reveals that a father does not delight in the suffering and death of his son. God, the Father of His only-begotten Son, did not and could not delight in the suffering and death of Jesus. But just as he rewarded the obedience of Abraham, our Heavenly Father accepted the obedience of His Son for the redemption of the world. Indeed, sin is more horrible than we can imagine. Christian martyrs with invincible faith mysteriously “complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col. 1:24)

Faith is reasonable, but beyond our grasp. So we freely choose the word of God as revealed through His Church. The Cross is the outward sign of the perfect obedience of Jesus. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the perfect expression of our obedience to Jesus: “Do this in memory of me.” The Mass is the perfect expression of our faith.

Faith overcomes fear.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly commands his disciples to “Be not afraid.” Fear, if allowed to rule one’s life, easily becomes a false god. If fear is allowed to prevail, families and nations collapse.

Among the Demon’s most prominent prophets of Irrational Fear over the last fifty years was Paul Ehrlich, who wrote the wildly popular book, The Population Bomb. Babies were taking over the world and would soon consume all the food like locusts! Those little critters had to be stopped. So we spent billions on population control—peddling condoms, chemicals, and abortion clinics—in honor of a simple diabolical belief: There are way too many of you, but just enough of me.

The result? A massive global birth dearth. The fertility rate in the U.S. has fallen to 1.6 per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement rate. (So when children cry at Mass, be not annoyed. Give our future taxpayers a little respect.) Alas, the greedy demon lusting for human hysteria has replaced the Population Bomb scare with Climate Change.

The only solution is a fearless return to our humanity: the love of husband and wife and families, and, God-willing, an expanding human tax base. Pope John Paul II was God’s prophet of sobriety and reason:

We must not be afraid of the future. We must not be afraid of man. It is no accident that we are here. Each and every human person has been created in the ‘image and likeness’ of the One who is the origin of all that is. We have within us the capacities for wisdom and virtue. With these gifts, and with the help of God’s grace, we can build in the next century and the next millennium a civilization worthy of the human person, a true culture of freedom. We can and must do so! And in doing so, we shall see that the tears of this century have prepared the ground for a new springtime of the human spirit. (Address to the UN General Assembly, October 5, 1995)

“Do not fear, only believe.” (Mk. 5:36)