27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - C
If ever there was a genuine prayer then I think that we could agree that this request of the Apostles comes very close to top of the list: “Increase our faith.”
Faith has a few different meanings. This time I would like to reflect on the more common and elementary understanding of faith: believing or not believing in God.
This is not the faith by which one decides whether one is Catholic or Protestant, Christian or Muslim, but the faith by which one decides whether one is a believer or a nonbeliever, believer or atheist. A Scripture text says: "Those who come to God must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6). This is the first step of faith, without it, we cannot take the other steps.
The faith that is being asked for is not to have a better knowledge of our catechism. What is being asked for is a much deeper and stronger trust and confidence that our God is near us, even when he seems so far away, that he will take care of his own.
That does not mean, however, that with such a faith Christian life will be free of all hardship and difficulty. Being a Christian, taking the Gospel seriously, is never going to be a tea party. God has promised his loving care but he has never promised a life free of pain, difficulties, suffering, or even sudden and violent death. Let us not forget that "He did not spare his own Son".
Secondly, faith presupposed trust and honesty. I cannot claim that I believe in God if I don’t believe God, if I don’t trust Him totally. Without trust I cannot pretend that I believe.
What God does promise is that, with a deep faith and trust in Him, we can endure pain and difficulties, that we can accept pain and suffering, if and when it comes, for the sake of making the message of Jesus a reality in our world.
Thirdly – faith presupposes objectivity. I cannot believe something what I constructed myself.
Famous German theologian Karl Rahner in his book “Foundations of the faith” writes:
“True religion, as a religion of the transcendental God and not the religion of my own subjective imagination cannot be rooted only in my subjectivity or depend only on my individual projection. It has to be a religion of objective and indisputable moral and ethical values rooted ultimately in God, Who is always out of me and finally out of my understanding. If the religion is only an expression and interpretation of my personal understanding and my private acceptation, it is always subjective and week, and finally it is a kind of homemade religion. And what is the value of such a homemade religion? The value of such a homemade religion is the same as the value the home made currency. Means null, literally zero!!”
And one thing more:
We have to do something to deepen our faith. Apostles are honestly asking: “Increase our faith.” Do we pray, do we ask also? How much time do I spend, how much energy to increase my professional skills? How much time and energy do I spend to improve my natural capacities, to upkeep my body in the good health? And how much time and energy do I spend in deepening my faith, in praying, in adoration and meditation? When did you have last time the opportunity to deepen your faith?
We cannot be surprise that our faith is weak if we do nothing to strengthen it.
This is why the Apostles –recognizing that their faith is weak- are asking: “Increase our faith.”
As a priest I so often hear people tell that their faith is weak, that they are riddled with doubts. Even in the Sacrament of Reconciliation people come in and confess that they lack faith. Yet lack of faith is not, nor ever could be, a sin.
Let me clarify that. Denial of faith certainly is a sin if it is the result of a deliberate systematic process of doubting and neglecting. If you were someone who had the faith but then as the result of a deliberate decision clearly rejected it and denied God because it is too demanding, then that would be a sin.
But I don’t think this applies to very many people and is certainly not what I am talking about. Neither am I talking about those who are guilty of negligence in relation to one’s faith which begins with neglecting prayer and church attendance and leads to deliberately forgetting about God and ultimately to lapsing into a sinful way of life.
There are, however, very many people who are assailed with doubts and anxieties about their faith. Doubts come to them in a similar way to distractions in prayer. They are going along quite nicely but then are suddenly tormented with worries and find themselves asking questions like:
- What if none of this is true?
- Maybe God doesn’t exist?
- Is the Church just one elaborate confidence trick to keep the masses quiet?
- If God really loves us why do terrible things happen?
- Will I go to hell because I don’t fully believe in Him?
Worrying about these doubts doesn’t make those who experience them feel any better; in fact it leads to even more uncertainty. And neither are they the result of a deliberate decision to doubt their faith because these thoughts come unsolicited and unwanted. These kinds of doubts are rather strengthening our faith if we honestly search for answers.
Our faith needs to become more sophisticated as a result of our growing and becoming adult. We begin to see that life as a follower of Jesus is all about choices and that sometimes it is very hard to discern the right choice. As Catholics we tend to see faith as given and static and this often blocks our faith development.
There is a real difference between the person assailed by doubts and those who deliberately reject their faith or who through neglect fall away from the practice of their faith and end up having completely excluded God from their life. And the difference is that the doubts come unwanted.
They want to believe but find themselves doubting and they feel that God is far away. It is as if the anchor that they held onto earlier in life has now come loose.
Clearly there is no deliberate choice here. This is quite patently not a rejection of God but an anxiety state. It is difficult to deal with because the person generally feels that God is far away.
I think that this is a condition that most dedicated followers of Christ will go through at some time or other. It is certainly something that the great saints have experienced and described. It is as if God removes Himself for a time and we feel grieving and without hope and it can be experienced as a time of testing or loss.
The thing to hang onto is that these feelings and doubts are unwanted. We want to believe but find ourselves full of uncertainties. And if we can keep that desire to believe at the front of our minds it will help us through these difficulties.
As we have noted faith is not something static; it is not something that once achieved remains the same forever. This is because we believe in a person—God—and since all relationships are essentially dynamic so is our relationship with God. We experience this in marriage and the other relationships in our life; there is always some movement and change.
Our relationship with God is no different; over time we experience similar adjustment and change. Sometimes God seems extraordinarily close and at other times further away.
We use these terms near and far but what we are talking about is not that it is God who is near or far but how we experience Him. God is everywhere and indeed he is closer to us that we are to ourselves but he exists in an entirely different order from us.
The saints describe these periods of difficulty as being extraordinarily fruitful. However, we only see the fruits in retrospect and at the time only experience the difficulty. Our trust in God is tested severely and we sometimes find ourselves on the verge of losing all hope.
At these times we should remember that we are not alone. The Church is not a group of isolated followers of Jesus but a community of faith. And if at certain times our faith is very weak then the faith of the whole community of believers can sustain us.
We can think of ourselves as being carried along by the faith of the others. That is why, when we recite the Creed at mass, we say ‘We believe’ not ‘I believe’. We are helped and supported spiritually but other members of the parish are, of course, also there for us to talk to about particular aspects of faith we might be finding difficult. Again this is something we Catholics ought to do much more of.
By means of an analogy Christ tells us in the Gospel today that our faith even when apparently strong is really quite weak indeed. Which of us has moved a mulberry tree lately?
I think that today’s Gospel text can be seen as a suggestion that we should not take ourselves too seriously. When we are assailed by doubts we make the mistake of putting ourselves at the centre of the picture when really it is God who is at the centre of the picture.
I think that this is also what the story of the servant is about. The master doesn’t prepare the meal for the servant. No, the servant prepares the meal for the master. The servant’s job is to do his duty. We too should therefore not become over concerned about our faith or lack of it; we should just do our duty. This is the objectivity of faith. If you are searching in faith a kind of comfort or luxury you are on the wrong way, because you are searching yourself and you commodity and not God.
God sees all and knows all. He knows that what motivates us is a wish to do good, a desire to love Him, a longing to be with Him in heaven. Our troubles and anxieties pale into insignificance when, instead of constantly going over and over the details of our faith and whether we believe in this or that doctrine, we simply turn our gaze on Him.
When we consider the love God has for us, when we appreciate the blessings he has already poured out on us and the many more he has in store for us, then we begin to realise that even the faith we once thought was strong means practically nothing to Him.
He loves us with faith or without it. And our perceptions of his nearness or faraway-ness really don’t count for much at all. All our anxieties are as of nothing compared to God’s anxiety that we should appreciate his love for us.
