Yes, I Believe

            We all say yes; sometimes dozens of times a day. ‘Yes I would like a piece of chocolate’ we may say to a guest walking past our office, ‘yes you may sit at this lunch table with us,’ ‘yes I’m going home for the weekend,’ ‘yes I have decided to pay my taxes this year!’ We say yes all the time. Even when we say no we are really just saying yes to the opposite.

We say yes so often to the little things that it may make saying yes to those big things, the big questions in life, a little less extraordinary. We all have to answer those big questions sometime in our lives. Questions like ‘do I really want to marry this person?’ ‘Do I stick with this job or search for something new?’ ‘Do I want to enter into a religious community?’ ‘Do I want to open myself up to formation towards priesthood?’ To further complicate life a little yes may sometimes make us waver on answering a big yes. We may be tempted into a small yes and shy away from committing to a life fulfilling big yes.

Abraham said yes to a covenant with God, a yes that almost cost him his son; Moses said yes to a burning bush telling him to lead his people; Mary said yes to an angel that told her she was to bear the Son of God; Joseph said yes to being the adoptive father of the Son of God. The disciples said yes and followed that child; that child, that Son of God, said yes to the cup of suffering his true Father offered Him.

They all have something important in common. All of these yes answers include ‘I believe’ after that big yes. Yes I believe, Amen, reveals the true nature of a big yes. One has to believe to say yes to the big questions in life, one must believe in the goodness of God, goodness that will see you through for all eternity. This belief in the goodness of God allows a person to look past any insignificant yes; any yes that could get in the way of God working in your life, any yes that may lead you astray. 

            Unfortunately there are times when even an Amen becomes routine. Yes, even a big yes can become routine, when we get so used to saying yes to certain big questions, it begins to lose its meaning. Lose its special place like all of those little every day yeses. We will say an Amen today, an Amen that can easily become routine. The Body of Christ, Amen… the Body of Christ… Amen, the Body of Christ… a blank stare, and what might as well be a grunt. We come and receive the Eucharist, the Body and the Blood of the One that helps us through our big questions; the One that if allowed into our hearts will guide us on our way back to Him. Let us keep in mind the importance of all our yeses, those that are small, those that are big, and those that maybe routine but are nonetheless infinite in importance.