The Peaceful Dove: 2013

Monday, 7 October 2013

Faith is Enough

We often say that one person or another has ‘got the faith’ or, ‘has strong faith’ or even that someone or even a whole country has ‘lost the faith’. Today we hear the disciples asking Jesus: ‘increase our faith’. So what do we mean, what is this thing called faith.

Faith is the graced but free acceptance of God’s self-communication in Christ as mediated by the Christian community.[i] God is trying to reach us, whom he has created, and waits for us to respond to his love. Pope Francis teaches us in his first encyclical letter: “Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives”. Lumen Fidei 4

To have faith is to trust God, in his revealed Word in the scriptures and the Church. Faith allows us to know that our lives have a purpose, even if we cannot see that at the moment. Faith allows us to look outside our narrow range of self-interest and to be able to look on the situation of our world with the eyes of God, and in doing this, we are able to lift ourselves and those around us from the morass of fatalism to the life of grace.

Faith allows us to be more, to be authentic and to be capable of the potential God has given us.

Faith is not about quantity but quality. It doesn’t matter how much faith we have, because it doesn’t take much to change the world. We don’t have anything like a mustard seeds worth of faith, yet we still make a difference. In our Gospel, Jesus asked his disciples to do their duty faithfully, and then faith will grow. St Paul adds that God’s gift was not one of timidity, but the spirit of power, and love, and self-control.

Each one of us has at some time or other lamented our lack or weakness of faith. Jesus speaks to us as well and calls to the same faithfulness as the disciples. We all have faith to work with, so none of us are stymied. The famous American social justice advocate Dorothy Day was often called a saint. Her reaction to this was: Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily. It is so easy for us to say: well that is ok for him, or her, or Dorothy Day or mother Teresa because they are saints. Well, they are like us, and started with the faith and opportunities given to them and lived them to the full. As St Irenaeus of Lyon said in 330 The glory of God is man fully alive, in other words, using all of our gifts to make this world a better place and let the love of God reign.

We have been given the gift of faith. Our duty is to nurture and protect that gift as we live it in our lives and pass it one to others. None are allow dot stick our heads in the sand, to exempt from this wonderful adventure.

Homily 6 October 2013, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C, OLQP Broome.

[i] Encyclopaedia of Catholicism, 510