Our Gospel for this, the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time, begins with a dramatic request: the Apostles say to the Lord, “Increase our faith”. I would like to spend some time with you today on this precious gift of faith.
Just before the apostles asked the Lord to increase their faith, Jesus instructed them in a hard teaching: if your brother “sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says ‘I repent’, you must forgive him” (Luke 17:4). You must forgive, when someone is asking for forgiveness. After this very demanding teaching, the apostles ask the Lord to increase their faith. Faith gives us a supernatural vision of things, a vision that allows us to glimpse at least in a small degree the reality around us through the eyes of God. Faith allows us to see the world, at least in some way, as God sees it. In the first reading of this Sunday, from the Prophet Habakkuk, the Lord says, “there is still a vision for the appointed time…the righteous shall live by his faith”. Despite the darkness around us, there is still a vision for these days. It is no secret that we experience struggles and doubts in our life of faith. We will not do a show of hands as to how many of us here had doubts, or have doubts, about God, or the Church, or a certain teaching or belief. We do not usually share these struggles, these dark nights, except in the confessional, or in spiritual direction, or by writing in a diary, or with a trusted friend. Our faith is a precious, and sensitive part of our soul, but it can also be fragile. It is precious because it gives us a vision. It allows us to piece together the various elements of our being Catholic, it is faith that helps us to overcome the doubts that at times plague our minds.
How do we increase our faith? We should ask to have the eyes to see the working of God around us. Sometimes this working of God can be dramatic: a little while ago, a young man had a major accident, hit a tree, totalled his car, had the engine literally sitting beside him in the passenger seat. And yet not only did he escape with his life but managed to avoid serious injury. Several hours before the accident, he had been to Sunday morning Mass. At other times, the working of God is less spectacular: some Sundays ago, with a packed 11:00 a.m. Mass, I started to give out Holy Communion with deacon Chabot. Deacon Chabot’s ciborium was full of hosts, but not that full, and I wondered if he would have enough Holy Communion to last. At the end of Holy Communion, he had exactly one host left. At other times, God works through nature. In the Valley, beautiful rainbows appear at times, including one that came up right over St. Hedwig’s church (I have a picture of it for the background photo on my laptop). The rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with His people.
The Catechism too gives us some ways to increase our faith: “To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; it must be "working through charity," abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church” (CCC 162). Once again, here are the elements: the word of God, meditating and reading Sacred Scripture, or listening to it, throughout our busy day; asking, like the apostles, for God to increase our faith; activating our faith through charity, and rooting it in the faith of the Church. We need to be firmly grounded in the faith of the Church. And yes, at times, holding on to faith will mean doing battle: St. Paul writes to Timothy, “Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience” (1 Tim 1:18-19). The evil one will masterfully use our own weaknesses and sins to try to demoralise us, to try to discourage us, and weaken our faith. He knows that our faith is our pearl of great price, our treasure, our vision. Keeping our faith will cost us. There is a price to hanging on to the faith: sometimes, we will need to get rid of toxic relationships, an undue trust in money our own abilities, or our own spiritual pride, to have the grace to come to God as an infant, as a child. To keep our faith we need others, from both the natural realm and the supernatural realm.
Today, we commemorate our Holy Guardian Angels. The Catechism teaches, “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life” (CCC 336). Our Guardian Angels will inspire us to protect and preserve our faith, our vision. We also have begun the month of October, the month of the Rosary. Once again, the Catechism states, “Throughout her life and until her last ordeal when Jesus her son died on the cross, Mary's faith never wavered…And so the Church venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith” (CCC 149). We call upon Mary as “Virgin most faithful” in the Litany of Loreto. We too can ask the Lord to increase our faith, and Mother Mary, to help us preserve and strengthen it.
Lord, “increase our faith.” Help us have the eyes of faith, so that we may not lose our vision for the appointed time. Assist us in our battle to keep the faith. May this be our fervent prayer.
(Fr. Pawel Ratajczak, OMI, Oct. 2, 2022)