Sunday, October 3, 2010

XXVIIth Sunday in Ordinary time

XXVII SUNDAY HAB.1:2-3; 2:2-4; II TIM 1:6-8, 13-14;: LUKE 17: 5-10

The story is told of a man who fell off a mountain cliff. Half-way down the cliff he succeeds in grabbing a branch of a tree. There he is, dangling on the branch, unable to pull himself up yet knowing that by letting go of the branch he would definitely fall to his death. Suddenly the man gets an idea. He looks up to heaven and shouts, “Is anyone up there?” A voice comes from heaven, “Yes, I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe in me?” The man shouts back, “Yes, Lord, I believe in you. I really believe. Please help me.” The Lord says, “All right! If you really believe in me you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Now let go of the branch.” The man thinks about it for a moment and then shouts back, “Is anyone else up there?”
Is the man in the story a believer? O course he believes that God exists. He believes in the power of prayer. He believes that God is able to help him and save him from his predicament. But he does not take God on His word. Many of us laugh at the story because we can recognize ourselves in this man. We believe in God, but when the going gets tough and things do not work out as we expect we take matters into our own hands or look for help elsewhere. We believe, yes; but we are people of little faith
The apostles too were men of little faith. They believe in Jesus and follow him, but when they see the soldiers approaching in the garden of Gethsemane they abandon Jesus and flee. They are men of little faith. The big difference between us and the apostles is that whereas we often see ourselves as keeping the faith all right, the apostles see themselves as men of deficient faith. They know their faith lacks something.
In response to the request of the apostles to increase their faith, Jesus tells them the parable about the unprofitable servant who comes back from plowing the field and proceeds straight away to prepare supper for his master and to wait on him while he eats. Only after the master’s needs are fully satisfied does the master then give the servant leave to attend to his own need for food and rest. How does this parable answer the request of the apostles for an increase of faith. Jesus is saying that if we have mature faith we would put the will and pleasure of God first in our lives at all times. If we have faith we will not grumble and complain that we have been working for God all day long, now we are tired and it is God’s turn to attend to our needs. Rather we will forget ourselves and work ourselves to death in God’s service, knowing that God will come to our aid when and how He deems right.
Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am delivered now or not, I will stick to my belief that God loves and cares for me. This is the mistake of the young man caught in the mountain cliff. He has faith in his own deliverance, not in God’s infinite power to save and His unfailing love for him. God’s unconditional love for us demands only one proper response from us, our unconditional love and service of God. So many of us Christians today believe that true and mature faith consists in our ability to obtain miracles from God. The truth that today’s gospel shows us is that mature faith consists not in how much God attends to our immediate needs but in how willing we are to serve God unconditionally, without counting the cost.
Faith is believing and trusting in God. Faith is like a muscle, you have to exercise it every day to make it strong. My faith will grow stronger if I exercise it by trusting in God each and every day. Faith is not faith if kept in reserve for emergencies. Faith is lived daily and shapes the way we think and behave. It is about receptivity to God's presence in our daily lives and it is seen in our faithful behaviour.
The size of faith doesn’t matter because God is the one doing the moving. If it is my faith that moved the mountain, then the bigger the mountain the more faith I would need to move it. The bigger the obstacle the more strength I’d need to climb it. The more serious the illness, a faith even greater would be required to overcome it. The more serious the sin the more faith I would need in order to have it forgiven. That kind of thinking, kind of makes sense, but that’s not how faith works. In fact, faith doesn’t do the work at all. God is the one doing the work through faith. Think of faith as the key that opens the door to God acting in our lives. If I have a bigger key ring than you do, does it matter? The size of a key ring doesn’t matter – key rings don’t open doors but it’s that little key on the ring that opens doors. Even a little faith opens the door for God to move the mountains and trees and even our hearts. That little faith is the little opening for God to enter our life to do the work in our life.

Here Jesus cautions us that it is the quality of faith rather than the quantity of faith that needs to be increased. That is why Jesus compares faith to a tiny mustard seed – a living thing whose power does not depend on its size, but on its life principle that is hidden deep within itself. Unless we understand this distinction, we run the risk of deceiving ourselves. We can easily end up thinking that the more prayers we say, the more faith we have. Or that the more good works we do, the stronger our faith becomes.
Faith is more like life itself. It is something that can grow in a qualitative sense and become deeper, richer and more fruitful. Faith is more than praying with bowed heads and clasped hands.

St. Paul tells us: "Bear your share of hardships which the gospel entails with the strength that comes from God." This is because it is in the fire of affliction that our faith is best tested. The book of Job bear testimony to this. It is this faith that can draw out the poison that is in every sorrow and quench the fire in every pain. Only with such faith can we trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to his love and the future to his providence.

It does not follow that faith will give us the power to literally move trees. But faith will give us power to cope with difficulties and attempt great things for the Lord. It is the power to persevere through difficulties, the power that comes from knowing that our Father is in charge.

The Responsorial Psalm we heard today gives us one sure way to activate the power of faith: "If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart."
Faith is practical. If we believe in God's wisdom, love, and power, we will obey him. We will follow where he leads. And he is always leading us somewhere - always making his voice heard. The most common way he does so is through our conscience. Our conscience is like an inner radio station that is always tuned to God's voice. But it's not the only station out there, and, unfortunately, it's not always the loudest. Sometimes we turn up the station of peer pressure and fashion really loud, or the station dedicated to self-indulgence, irresponsible pleasure, and other soothing but deadening sounds. The sounds that we usually hear loud and clear these days is the sound of death. Pronouncing death for defenseless for one’s easy comfort. Today is respect for life Sunday. Our faith demands respecting life in all its forms. At least 25,000 innocent lives are taken everyday the world over. We feel terribly over the loss of 4000 lives on 9/11; Six million lives by Nazis during world War II. We condemn them. But the most contemptible atrocity ever done on human lives is committed or being committed in these decades by promoting abortion. Does that pain me at all ? Do I condemn that ? If not, I don’t live my faith. Even though I may call myself a Catholic, I don’t believe what the Lord teaches me- to protect the life of the defenseless. President Reagan said: I have noticed that all who are for abortion are already been born. The un-borns can not speak for themselves. So it is the duty of those already born and living, to stand for the right to life of the unborn. Jesus said: I have come that you may have life, life in abundance. And he also said that the thief/Satan comes to steal and kill. So those who are up for abortion are Satan’s agents. Jesus is truly a liberating force. He liberates us from all that endangers our life.

This seventh is the feast of the our Lady of Holy Rosary whose intercession led to the defeat of the advancing Muslims on the Medittaranean Christian countries in the 1500s. Let’s pray to her that blinding scales from the eyes of all the spiritually blind may fall off, so that they may see the value of human life as God’s precious gift. That they may see that procured abortion, Euthanasia, Suicide, Doctor- assisted suicide, embryo destruction for scientific experiments are all evil in themselves which are to be avoided as children of God.

No comments:

Post a Comment