Introduction — The more we inquire into the nature of the great gift of faith, the more we may be impelled to withstand all attacks against it, the more we may be animated to estimate its value and to prize it at its true worth. So let it be considered first, that:

I. Faith is a gift. It is ours only by presentation. We have not begotten it; we have not stretched out our hands for it and seized it. It is not ours to summon as we please. There are myriads in the world looking for it. It is a donation. It is gratuitous. It comes from God, and no one forced Him to bestow it. Every Catholic, as his reason shows, as he awakens into consciousness sooner or later, finds himself in possession of it. God is not an “Indian giver.” He never takes back faith from an individual once He grants it. Yet it disappears sometimes, or rather often, from the hold of the possessor. Like every other gift, the gift, for example, of existence, God’s concurrence, in order to conserve it, is absolutely indispensable. When a man loses his faith he interposes between God’s action and his possession an obstacle something like the short-circuiting of an electrical current — the burning out of a fuse, for instance — and lo! there is no intermediary between God and the soul in the matter of faith, and the grand, bright light goes out, and “life eternal is lost and the man does not know” Thee— only true God and Him whom Thou hast sent Christ Jesus (John xvii. 3). It is to be understood that no man loses the gift of faith save by his own fault. God never takes it away. Man rejects it or man throws it from him.

II. Faith is a gift of transcendent excellence . (a) It is the foundation, the corner, the keystone of the Church, (b) The root of that tree Nabuchodonosor saw in his dream (Dan. iv. 7). (c) The beginning of salvation, the origin of justification, (d) It raises us above brutes, above the senses. ( e ) It elevates us above nature; it supernaturalizes us. (f) It is the assimilation of our nature with the divine nature. ( g ) It is the dawning of the beatific vision. (h) It is a new sense, telescopic in its powers. (i) It is certainty in doubt. (j) A haven in the storm. (k) It is the way, the truth, and the life.

III. It is delicate beyond the delicacy of anything in nature. The hot breath of passion melts it as the sun dissolves the frost creations on our windows or in the forest. It is as delicate as chastity, as charity. The Christian graces are Chastity, Charity, Faith. They wither at a touch — they are killed by a thought.

Conclusion — Our care of this rare gift should be commensurate with its preciousness. (Cf. Hurter, Vol. I, and S.S., passim et ubique .)

Apologetica:  Elementary Apologetics for Pulpit and Pew
by Halpin, P. A. (Patrick Albert), 1847-1920