27th Sunday in Ordinary time
'If you had faith like a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea," and it would obey you. Luke 17: 6
Intro: Faith is a gift from God, and, if we have faith, we're told that all things are possible. We come together today to nourish this gift, to fan it into a flame, by listening to God's word and celebrating His gift of His own Son in our Eucharist, the very mystery of faith.
Readings: Habbakuk complains that God is slow to respond to the just man's cry for help. God tells him to have faith and patience, and reassures him that injustice will finally be overcome.
Paul tells Timothy that having faith will bring hardship. It has to be nurtured like a young plant if it is to grow. Witnessing to the Gospel requires courage, devotion and self-control.
Habakkuk 1: 2-3; 2:2-4;
2 Timothy 1: 6-8; 13-14;
Luke 17: 5-10;
I suppose many of us experience a lack of faith at one time or another, or perhaps we simply presume that everyone else has more faith than we do. So, it's good to know that we're in good company: it's heartening for us to hear the apostles asking Jesus to increase their faith. These same apostles had travelled round with Him, hearing Him preach, seeing His miracles with their own eyes, yet they still felt the need to ask the Lord to help them in their faith.
His response is neither to lecture them on their weakness of faith nor to give them a quick seminar on the steps necessary for deepening their faith. He simple tells them a story. He always used simple stories as His favourite method of helping people see the truth. He knew it wouldn't do any good to go about lecturing people on how they could or should be; but if you tell a story, people can listen to it and then draw the appropriate lesson.
St. Paul echoes this teaching by reminding Timothy's community that faith is a precious treasure which has been gifted to us and, as such, has to be guarded and looked after carefully. But he doesn't expect the community to do so by their own efforts: he tells them that the Holy Spirit will be with them to help them. And when the apostles and those early Christians allowed the faith to take centre stage in their lives, they experienced the power and love of God in a very real way.
The apostles obviously weren't afraid, ashamed or embarrassed to ask for help. They had seen their Master pray, and they begged Him, "Lord, teach us how to
pray." Faith and prayer go together: if we pray, our faith grows; and if our faith grows, then we are drawn to prayer. So perhaps that's a prayer which we could make our own today - "Lord, increase our faith" and repeat it through the day. It's a little phrase, a repeated and repeatable prayer to help us become people of prayer, that through our faith, we may become people who live close to Our Lord.
Jesus simply gives an example of what the apostles would actually be capable of if they had even the smallest amount of faith. It's a bold way of saying that faith can do the impossible. Because, like the apostles, we have the same duty: to make sure that the Kingdom of God becomes a reality in our midst.
Pope Benedict XVI once wrote, "if we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great."
Intercessions
Our faith assures us that we can bring our needs to the Lord with every confidence that He will hear and answer us. And so, with that same complete confidence, we now pray:-
1. For our holy Father and his fellow bishops, and all who minister in the Church. Keep their faith strong, so that they may preach the Gospel message with courage, conviction and compassion - Lord, hear us.
2. For our politicians. May they bear in mind the duty they have to promote true justice as they work for the welfare of our country and all those under their care - Lord, hear us.
3. For parents, teachers, and all those entrusted with the work of educating our young people. Help them to hand on their own strong faith with sincerity and love - Lord, hear us.
4. For those who have doubts, who have become disillusioned with Your Church or lost their faith in You or humanity. Bring them back to You, and help them understand that You will never walk away from them - Lord, hear us.
5. With faith in Your promises, we place before You Rob Clark, Ian Erskine and Gerry Martin who have died recently, and James Gray, James Hagan, Mary Reid, John Reid and Nan Smillie, whose anniversaries occur about this time; that they may rise once more into the everlasting light of Your presence - Lord, hear us.
Lord, hear these prayers of Your holy people. We call to You in our need, and make our prayers with faith and in the name of Jesus Your Son.