the essence of faith

 I have misunderstood.

Of what use is it to weigh down Christ’s table with golden cups, when he himself is dying of hunger? Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.
St. John Chrysostom

so when I sing "Christe eleison" is it not actually the people and children of Gaza, the refugees, the homeless, the unwanted that I address?   Isn´t this the scandal and also the urgent meaning of what Jesus calls so apparently elusively "kingdom"?

the word "God"

using the word "God" without at least a smidgeon of understanding is like using the word "love" when we are not actually "in" it.  it is simply meaningless to us.

meaning

 no, it isn´t that you give me meaning exactly.
it´s that you make my meaninglessness even less than irrelevant.
the meaning is yours.

Leo the Great

 Such is the light of believers, that they put faith in what is not seen with the eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible.

 In the same sermon he continues:

The truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into his Father’s glory; he now began to be indescribably more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ’s tangible body, in which as man he is inferior to the Father. For while his glorified body retained the same nature, the faith of those who believed in him was now summoned to heights where, as the Father’s equal, the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical handling but by spiritual discernment.

Leo puts his finger on the essential transition from reality to myth. Myth, not as fairy story or a legend for children, but as the only means by which we can grasp otherwise inexplicable truth.
 . . and equally unassailable stumbling block for post-Renaissance Man. . . . 

as though it were already present . . .

 Those who have a sure hope, guaranteed by the Spirit, that they will rise again, lay hold of what lies in the future as though it were already present. (Cyril of Alexandria)

 as though it were already present