Faith has a way of bringing us into a certain sense of understanding that we are sustained by a loving, friendly, powerful God. And when you have that, that is the gift of faith. I know if you are watching that you are a person of faith. There is a certain sense in which you can say, "I am sustained by the Lord. What would I do, where would I be without by faith?" There are a lot of people who can’t do that. They absolutely cannot do that. They don’t have the same sense and it’s a terrible thing because their live is deprived of the benefits that come from faith—the empowerment, the peace, and all the rest.

I had a correspondence going with Carl Sagan. It lasted for a number of years. Poor Carl died at the end of 1996. He had that wonderful series on PBS called Cosmos. At some point he said, "There’s not a shred of evidence in the entire universe for the existence of the supernatural." Well, he was right. There is no empirical evidence; there’s no test tube that you can put invisible spirit of God into and say, "There He is!" You can’t prove the existence of God in that way. I wrote a column and said that there are more ways of knowing truth than just empirical evidence or science. I explained the old, traditional proof of God that something doesn’t come from nothing.

You look at something like a watch. It’s impossible to conceive of it existing without some explanation, some cause, some factory, some proof of workers. It had an explanation. It just didn’t drop out of heaven and become materialized. So if it’s true of a little thing like that, the principle of causality suggests that something as magnificent and as far-reaching and vast and beautiful as the universe with all its harmony came from some kind of intelligence. But for Carl, that was not proof.

When I wrote the column, apparently a lot of people sent it to him. He was at Cornell at the time and wrote to me. "Where am I inconsistent?" he asked. He explained his logic, which was all perfectly logical from a scientific point of view. And as a result, another letter from me and another letter; and after that another letter. It went on for about two or three years.

I finally pinned him down in this way. I said, "Look, you believe that there’s extraterrestrial life out there. There’s not a shred of evidence to date that there is, but because of the millions and billions of stars and galaxies, you conclude that we are not the only planet that has intelligent life." And I said, "That’s logical. That’s understandable. But as a matter of fact, we don’t think in terms of proving such a thing. That’s a deduction that you make not in any way proven by science." On the same premise, he was willing to go to the government and ask for government money—and got it—to send signals up indicating that we are an intelligent species, to see if anyone was out there. I wrote, "You’re willing to do that on the basis of deduction, but when it comes to God, you don’t do it. Why not experiment with a prayer? If there’s anybody up there, just in case, maybe it would be wise if you prayed to that person." It’s a silly thing, but just pray, "Dear God, if there is a God, help me to save my soul if I have one," the prayer of the agnostic.

Carl wrote back and said, "I can’t do that because there would be no verifiable scientific way of proving that I actually got an answer from God." And at that point I said that I didn’t think that we were going to get anywhere with our correspondence. The point that I’m making is that this good, highly intelligent man was unable to make the leap of faith. Because he did not understand God, he could not trust Him. And the thing that you’re able to do, because you don’t understand Him or whether you understand Him or not, is in some way to trust God that He will be there for you; that he will sustain your life. And it’s a wonderful gift. If you have it, it opens the floodgates of all kinds of gifts of love, joy, forgiveness, all those powers that come to you because of supernatural grace.

You might say, "Well, I have faith, but I don’t have strong faith. I’m weak in some areas of my faith." I would say that everybody has their moment. Doubts come into your mind. They are not really doubts, but they are difficulties. I remember when I was in the seminary, I had for five years resisted the idea of becoming a priest. Although I wanted to be one, I was afraid I’d fail. I was afraid of getting into a situation which I wasn’t happy in. I was drawn to it and I felt the need to do it, but my fears prevented it. Finally, I made the leap that if God was inspiring my vocation, He would sustain me along the way. And I said, "Yes!" I started to walk on the water!

While I was in the seminary, the sad thing that happened was that my mother became very sick. I prayed that she would live to see my ordination. I prayed with fervor, with a strong faith and a believing faith, hoping and wanting her to enjoy this day of days. To my utter shock and amazement, she died when I was in second theology. I had two, maybe two-and-a-half years to go. Well, it really undermined my confidence and faith, and it wasn’t only grief that I had to deal with. What if I had constructed this whole thing out of my imagination? What if God isn’t there? What if he won’t be there? What if I’d made a tremendous mistake? And as a result of all that thought and agonizing, it all just simply cleared up one day as I was praying. It was so simple that I’m amazed that I was perplexed. It was as though I heard a voice saying, "Listen, your mother was very sick, she was in pain. You wanted me to keep her alive for two more years in that condition? No, no, no. It was time. I wanted to bring her home. She’ll watch your ordination. Don’t worry about that." So it became clear to me—I realized God’s wisdom is better than the best wisdom that I’ve ever had—that God knows and that I can trust God even if I don’t understand Him. I think that’s the message I want to convey today, that in order to have faith you trust the Lord God.

A priest friend of mine went to the missions in Africa. It took him three years to learn Swahili. He was working in a small village when he could finally communicate to his community. They understood him, but one of the men came up to him afterwards and said, "Father, we thank you for all the sacrifices you’ve made to preach to us in Swahili, but you don’t understand God the way we do. You speak of God as out there in the universe, but for us God is like a tiger and we are the prey. Not only does He hunt us down, but we are already captured by him and baptism puts the seal on this capture. We are held by Him and He owns us, so there isn’t any great difficulty in reaching him. He is the one who seizes us." The priest learned more from that man, the native, than he probably learned in the seminary. It’s just a way of looking at God which is more meaningful in some ways than some kind of a vague, distant God in whom you have faith. We are owned by God. Once you have the faith to know that the Lord will sustain you and keep you and hold you and protect you, you don’t have to worry. Faith then becomes the support of your life. Then you can ask for the other gifts.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love; where there is injury, let me bring pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, let me bring hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, Lord, let me bring joy. Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

God bless you.

Lydia Talbot: Fr. Catoir, you are known to millions—former Director of the Catholic Multimedia Agency, "The Christophers," and television host of its national program, "Christopher Close-up," and syndicated columnist. Now, just into your retirement, you have answered yet another tough call from God to head up the biggest anti-poverty program in New Jersey. How did the power of faith that you described in your earlier message play a part in your decision?

John Catoir: Well, Jesus said that what you do for the least of my brethren, you do for me. It’s right there in Matthew and he’s discussing how you’re going to be judged. When I was hungry, did you give me to eat? When I was thirsty, did you give me to drink. If you did, then you have a better chance. So I suppose there is a certain amount of self interest here. I don’t know. Some people have asked me, "What about the communications, do you miss it now that you are in another kind of work?" I think the church’s mission is to communicate God’s love. Communications is using the media in some way to convey this faith knowledge that we have that God is love, that we can rest in peace in His arms. And so it seemed to me that a more direct way of communicating His love is to actually work with the poor.

Talbot: You said that you actually felt sorry for Carl Sagan, who you referred to in your talk, for the cynicism that he had.

Catoir: Carl Sagan was a good man and he was very idealistic and a man who loved peace. But he didn’t have faith.

Talbot: But the necessity to prove the existence of God. Other people might call the kind of faith you described as "blind faith." What do you say to them?

Catoir: Well, all faith is blind faith. Unless, if you can see it and prove it then it’s not faith anymore. It’s knowledge. It’s scientific knowledge. Faith is believing things hoped for that are unseen. So you’re blind if it’s unseen.

Talbot: And so the leap of faith...

Catoir: The leap of faith is saying "yes" even though you don’t quite understand God or the way he works.

Talbot: You talked about the death of your mother as being a pivotal moment in your journey of faith and the revelatory moment that when you realized that God couldn’t prevent her death, but God was there, too; God weeps with us in our losses.

Catoir: I’m sure that that’s the case but for me it was like a test. It was basically, I think, God saying, "Trust me. This didn’t go your way, but trust me. I know what I’m doing." When I could honestly do that, it kind of cleared the deck because I had to trust in a lot of other places, too; a lot of other times.

Talbot: Take us to Paterson, New Jersey and to the site of Eva’s Village which you’re directing now. What goes on there?

Catoir: We feed about three hundred people a day in our kitchen. It’s not a soup kitchen, it’s a hot meal. To date, we have fed two million since 1981. We have a family crisis center for people who are burned out, for women who are abused. We just had a woman get out of prison for solicitation. She gathered her four children from the corners of the world to bring them together and came to our door without a stitch of clothing in a bag. They had no place to go. These kids’ eyes were spinning after being out in other families for three months. Their mother was soliciting to feed them. It’s terrible what the judicial system does to some people. Anyway, we took them in. We have a halfway house for drug addicts and alcoholics and it’s men and women separately. We take parolees from the state and give them a chance to rehabilitate before they go out into the world.

Talbot: What do you see in the eyes of the poor?

Catoir: Sometimes contempt. I don’t want to be romantic about this. I mean, they are not all just nice, loving, sweet people. I sat down to have lunch with one of the men and I said, "Hi. My name is Father John. What’s yours?" And he said, "I’m eating!" It’s not always polite. But what Mother Teresa used to say was that you see Jesus in a distressing disguise. You see Jesus in the least among us, but in a distressing disguise. So you have to be willing not to expect thanks or anything like that.

Talbot: And you are there in the spirit of Catholic worker, Dorothy Day, providing hospitality when hostility is more often a prevailing attitude in this country.

Catoir: I don’t want to paint a totally bleak picture. I just don’t like to get sentimental and sappy about it. Most of them are grateful and very respectful, and we have a nice relationship and a nice rapport. But there are these little surprises which appear unexpectedly.

Talbot: You have said that doing this kind of ministry, being there in solidarity with people who are down and out, is partly inspired by visits that you would make as a college student at Fordham to shelters in New York City.

Catoir: As a young man I was attracted to this ministry and it seemed like that all my life. When I was at the Christophers I stayed at a men’s shelter once a month for eight years in a row and got to meet them, mingle, stay over night, and be out in the morning with them.

Talbot: You are there in the misery of human beings in need and yet you’ve managed to be sustained by joy. You have a joyous outlook. How do you that?

Catoir: I don’t know. But joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God. And it seems to me that all of us have God in us; we’re all the sacrament of God’s presence. I think we should be conscious of the fact that if you’re happy, please notify your face.

Talbot: And we thank you for that wonderful, compelling message about ministry and joy.