What Gets Us Through?

The recent sudden death of Tim Russert got me thinking. All the words written about him in the last week have made clear how important his faith was to him. It wasn’t the accolades he won, the money he made, the famous people he interviewed that made him who and what he was, but rather the faith which he espoused.

Commentators reminded us that he was the product of a working class family in South Buffalo and that rather than trying to lose that identity as he moved up in the world of politics and journalism, he treasured it. It made him who and what he was. Tim Russert’s Christian faith, lived out in the Roman Catholic Church gave him the resources for traveling the road of life.

The words of the Bible read each week; the spiritual presence of the body and blood of the Lord in the Eucharist; the catechism memorized, these are what sustained his journey. He was part of a community of faith which was not only local but world wide, which stretched back into time, built upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles. The history, the story, the words and the actions of this community carry us through the tough times.

I remember hearing about a woman who was in New York City on September 11, 2001. Her hotel overlooked the twin towers and she saw the planes hit and the towers burn. The words of Scripture, the prayers she had learned as a child all came back to her and enabled her to struggle through this terrifying ordeal.

When the times are tough and the going is rough this is what sustains us; not the accolades, not all the activities we are engaged in; not position or prestige; not all the fleeting things of this life, but the words of faith which have been passed down through the ages and the sure and certain knowledge that as the “Heidelberg Catechism” puts it: “not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven.”