Twenty Seventh
Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C
I think all Catholics from time to time, are tempted to
doubt their faith. I myself have walked through this valley of darkness,
weighed down by my baggage of doubts, conflicted by burning questions that seem
to find no satisfactory answers. In my search, I felt drawn to the personalism
of the Protestant faith, the humanistic theologies of dissenting theologians
and the novelty of new age spiritualities. Although, I do not think that my
experience is representative of every Catholic, I am convinced that I was, and
am not alone in my confusion.
There are
times when our confident or perhaps even over confident faith, is brought
crashing down because of what is presently happening in our lives. There are
times when our faith seems so trivial and weak in the face of gigantic threats
to our health, our family and our self-worth. When confronted with tragedy,
injustice or interior aridity, we lose confidence in God and begin to ask,
“Where is God?” To experience these things does not mean that we lack faith. It
may mean, however, that we have come up to the limits of our faith, to its
frontier in our hearts. We can’t see beyond the present horizon because our
faith doesn’t extend too far beyond the present moment. The German Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich once proposed
that “doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.” In many
cases, doubt can be a destructive force that leads a person away from faith.
But in other cases, doubt has led people to explore their faith, to investigate
alternatives, to seek new understanding and finally this resulted in a deepened
faith.
Overwhelmed by the demands of the discipleship, the apostles
in today’s gospel passage experience a crisis of faith. They cry out for help
and relief from their Master. The Lord had been teaching them to renounce their
wealth and take up their crosses on a daily basis. He also reminded them of the
importance of vigilance- 24/7. The Lord had also been instructing them on
the imperative of forgiveness, which is among the most difficult battles in the
Christian life. If your brother “wrongs you seven times in one day and
returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.” And
finally, it is difficult to believe how the cross leads to everlasting life. No
wonder the apostles wanted more faith. They recognised that without God’s
assistance, all these would prove impossible. And so the only request they
could muster in their desperation was this, “Increase our faith!”
However, faith is not a superpower that makes super heroes
of us. Faith is not like the power-up we use for our game-characters in order
to boost their performance. We must take care to distinguish faith as a
supernatural virtue either from religious feelings or sentiments arising from
devotion. Neither is faith the equivalent of religious ardour, a
spiritual bravado that makes its possessor courageous and fearless. The Lord
shockingly reminds them that they do not need a lot of faith, just a tiny
mustard seed of faith is enough. By using the uncommonly small mustard seed as
an example, Jesus is speaking figuratively about the incalculable power of God
when unleashed in the lives of those with faith. In other words, He is saying,
“You don’t even need faith the size of a mustard seed. The little bit of
faith you have is enough for God to do the impossible in your life.” Today, the
Lord is not asking us how much faith we have but rather, what are we doing with
the faith that He has already given us.
All these beg the question, “What is faith?” Well, the answer has two parts to it. Faith
is both a gift, as well as a response. As much as people often try to work
themselves up to some level of belief, they must remember that faith is first
and foremost a gift of God. We can’t earn it. We can’t buy it. We cannot
acquire it on our own, through our own efforts or through any human power. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that “Faith is a gift of God, a
supernatural virtue infused by Him.” (CCC 153) In baptism, we are all given the
gift of supernatural faith. That is why, unlike some Protestant sects
that reject infant baptism in favour of believer’s baptism, we baptise infants.
At baptism, the prodigious seed of faith is planted in the child, awaiting to
be nurtured by his or her parents and the community of the Church.
Since, the gift of faith has to be nurtured, it is also a
response. The Church teaches that faith is a theological virtue. And a
virtue, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is a habit, a power or capacity that gets
stronger when it is exercised and atrophies when it is not. So picture
this, faith is like a spiritual muscle. Faith takes practice. It takes
discipline. You exercise it by making acts of faith both in prayer and action.
People who do nothing about the gift of faith received at baptism can lose it. The Catechism tells us that “to live, grow
and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of
God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; it must be “working through
charity,” abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church” (CCC 162).
Though many choose to develop their faith, many others unfortunately do
not.
There is no denying that we live in a world of decreased
faith. The problems on all fronts seem to be escalating: people are scared and
scarred. We are experiencing one of the worst financial crisis in decades and
many stand hapless as we witness the blatant corruption of officials and a
government that frustrates many people. All of our systems - education,
economic, political - are in some kind of crisis. Even religion isn’t spared.
Whether one chooses to pay attention to it or deny it, sheer realism compels us
to admit that there is also a crisis of faith in the Church. Young people abandoning
the faith of their childhood, regular church attendance is at a low, aging
parishes, a shortage of priests, declining religious vocations and growing
numbers of self-identified Catholics who dissent from Church teaching. What do
we make of all this?
Our Holy Father,
Pope Francis, provided the answer in his first encyclical on faith, “Lumen Fidei”- the “Light of Faith.” In
this encyclical Pope Francis wrote, “Faith is not a light which scatters all
our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for
the journey. To those who suffer, God does not provide arguments which explain
everything; rather, his response is that of an accompanying presence, a history
of goodness which touches every story of suffering and opens up a ray of light.
In Christ, God himself wishes to share this path with us and to offer us his
gaze so that we might see the light within it. Christ is the one who, having
endured suffering, is “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb12:2).”
How much faith are you running on? A full tank? Half a tank?
Dangerously running close to empty? Instead of lamenting about your meagre
supply of faith, the gospel today invites you to bring your own mustard seeds
of faith, in many different shapes and sizes, in the hope that God will make
good what is lacking. There is enough faith in this room to change the world.
If only we have the courage to believe. If you are struggling with your faith,
or wondering how your faith life fits into the rest of your life, remember this
– keep praying, keep believing, keep practicing. When you are running on empty
and you can’t remember the last time you prayed, trust and believe that you
have been given a supernatural gift at baptism, a gift more powerful than any
super-human power, a gift that can cast out demons, heal the sick, allow you to
walk on water, uproot trees and even mountains, but more importantly a gift
that can lead you up Calvary and take you through the narrow door of salvation.
Have faith!
