Dear Parishioner,
In the Gospel this week the Apostles say to the Lord: “Increase our faith”. Jesus replies: “If your faith were the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it would obey you.” This might lead us to ask ourselves how much faith we ourselves have. A mustard seed is very small, more like a speck. It makes us realize how great a virtue faith is and how much power it has.
But what is faith? It is described as an “infused” virtue, that is to say it comes to us through grace. However, we must activate it by a movement of our will. Fundamentally we need to believe in the triumph of good over evil. We then share in that triumph by believing in Christ, his saving death and resurrection. We show that we believe by actively following his teaching. This teaching fulfills the teaching of the Old Testament. We do not have to follow the exact ritual prescriptions and rules of the Old Testament, but we need to see the essential goodness of the Old Testament, realizing that it comes from God. Last week in the Gospel, we heard Abraham say to the rich man that those who do not believe Moses and the prophets will not believe even if someone should rise from the dead.
Faith is inseparably linked to charity or love. It is love which moves us to persist in goodness even in the face of discouragement. Love is also an infused virtue. So, we can be confident that we have been given faith and love already. In Our Lord’s response we hear a challenge. If the disciples do not have enough faith, they can have more if they really love Jesus by trusting him more. We could spend some time in prayer today asking Our Lord that we will love and trust him more, particularly in the aspects of life where we find this most difficult. When we ask for things in prayer, either for ourselves or others, we show that we trust Jesus. If we do this with serious thought about our true needs or those of others it will increase our faith.
Yours in Christ,
Fr Timothy
