Daniel Aldridge used to be the Chancellor of the University of California at Irvine. In 1986, he gave a Commencement Address in which he talked about a graduate of Irvine who returned his diploma in the mail, with a letter saying he was returning his diploma because it hadn't enabled him to get a job.

Aldridge sent it back to him with a letter explaining what it means to be an adult and the meaning of a university. The purpose of a university is to help you become self-sufficient, to become concerned about and involved in society. A university is here to help you gain wisdom, morality, and maybe even, he concluded, the purpose of the university is "to equip you for the struggles of life, not to guarantee you victory."

Well, that's a model of faith as well. That's what faith enables us to do to continue the struggle, to keep on, to refuse to give up. Because, often we have to act in faith before the work of faith is actualized. As the lepers went their way they noticed they were healed.