27th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 - "Increase our Faith"

 

If you could ask Jesus for anything—if you had one request—what would you ask for? In the Gospel today, the apostles made a simple, but profound request. Did you catch it? They didn’t ask the Lord for riches or material security; nor did they ask for health or a long life. They asked him for something they had discovered was far more important than all of these things combined. They begged him, “Increase our FAITH!” They asked for faith.

The very first encyclical Pope Francis issued back in June of 2013 dealt with Faith.  It was called “Lumen Fidei” – The Light of Faith. He wrote, “The Church never takes faith for granted, but knows that this gift of God needs to be nourished and reinforced so that it can continue to guide her pilgrim way.” Like the apostles we members of the Church on earth need to turn to the Lord and ask him to increase our faith. And we have to do our part in making sure that our faith is as strong as it should be.

But what is Faith?

In one of my favorite passages from his encyclical on faith, 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.”

Do you get what he is saying here? What is faith? Faith isn’t some sort of magical power that forces God to remove our obstacles. Nor does faith eliminate the darkness in our life. Rather, faith enables us to walk rightly in the midst of difficulty because it involves the experience of God’s abiding presence with us. 

So professing the Catholic faith, being a person of faith, doesn’t mean that at any point we should expect God to remove all our difficulties and sufferings. Rather, to be a person of faith is to trust that God will provide enough light for us to make way through the darkness, enough strength to bear the weight of our sufferings; the fortitude to withstand the powers of evil that assail us.

What caused the apostles to make this request of the Lord to increase their faith in the Gospel today? Well, in the preceding passage, the Lord had given his famous teaching on scandal: “It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” And so, the apostles hear this warning, and immediately ask for faith. Why? Well, this is an instance of the apostles showing some real humility. They knew how easy it is for us to cause scandal and so they pray for all the trust and faith and guidance they need to avoid this terrible sin Jesus is warning them against. 

Think about it. Non-believers are to come to faith by the way we conduct ourselves. Young people, new Catholics are to learn what it means to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ by our example—by the way we speak, by the way we treat people. Jesus’ Lordship is to be seen in our self-control, our charity, our chastity, our patience. People are watching us, and so need God’s help if we are to be successful in drawing them to God and not driving them away.

The apostles, as the first bishops, knew that people would be looking to them especially. Anyone in a position of authority, including parents, should conduct themselves with fear and trembling, knowing that people are looking to them. A misstep, a public sin, a moment of weakness on their part, could lead a non-believer, or the weak of faith, to discount Jesus’ Lordship.

So yeah, the request, “increase our faith” so that we may not lead anyone astray, is a good petition. It’s a good petition for any of us, “Lord increase my faith, that by my conduct, I may not lead anyone away from you, today.”

I think of how the abuse scandals, 20 years ago already, had such devastating effects on the Church’s mission. I was in my first year of seminary when the abuse scandal hit the news. It was shocking. It was disgraceful. It was terribly heartrending, right? And yet, thanks be to God, somehow, I was blessed with a faith, that helped me to remember, that the sins of priests and bishops or any other Catholic does not prove that Christianity is flawed. The members of the Church are flawed. And their sins can cause great scandal. But Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And the Church is Our Mother. 

And God chose us to be Christians now, in 2002, in 2022; with that terrible wound in the background—to be part of the solution. And It’s our task to be people of great faith, now; that the light of Christ may shine brighter than the darkness caused by our sins. 

But if we’re going to be people of great faith, we certainly need to stir into flame, as St. Paul says in the second reading, the gift of faith given to us. We have a mountainous task before us, to evangelize this confused, fallen world in 2022, but, faith, the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. I hope you trust in this saying to the depth of your being—faith can move mountains. We are capable of doing great things when we trust God—when our faith is strong. And the more we nurture our faith—the more faith grows in us—the more faith is stirred into flame—the more room God will have to do truly wonderful things in us and through us.

You may have heard the old aphorism: “pray as if everything depends on God, act as if everything depends on you.” So we completely surrender to God in our prayer to increase our faith, but we most also identify what effort is necessary on our part to grow in faith. 

Growing in faith requires daily effort. We must read the bible daily. Study Catholic doctrine. Engage in daily devotions which nurture our faith like the rosary, the chaplet of divine mercy, the liturgy of the hours, praying of litanies. We must confess our sins—those times when we have neglected, ignored, or violated our Catholic faith in order to pursue selfish ends. We must make time for silent listening to God, for meditation and contemplation. 

If you can, come to daily mass throughout the week. At daily Mass, I love preaching on the lives of the saints, for the saints are our heroes and great exemplars of the faith. If you can’t make it to mass, read about the life of the saint every day. 

In the first reading, from the prophet Habakkuk, we heard, “the just one, because of his faith, shall live.” Faith is the light we need as not to stumble, the armor we need to withstand the attacks of the enemy and the hatred of the world, the wisdom we need to avoid causing scandal and to draw souls to Christ, and the lever we need to move the mountains God wants us to move.

May the Lord increase our faith, and may the Eucharist we celebrate, nourish us, and unleash the power of faith in our lives and our families and world, for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.