what faith isn't

"..faith is not some backwoods idea that we attach to our real experiences and bring along with us as our spiritual luggage; and that rebellion, doing it oneself, ("building a better world"), is not the last cry of reason, but that on the contrary the person who rebels and insists on doing it all himself or herself is the person who does not understand and does not perceive who he or she is and what the world is. Faith is not some abstruse philosophy but finding one's way to wisdom, to understanding, to objectivity, to becoming aware of the whole of reality."

                                     -     Pope Benedict XVI,   from Magnificat, August 2018