PaddlingPadre

Increase our faith. Our gospel starts off with the apostles asking this favor of Jesus, and so we don’t get to hear the context that led to that the request, but if we back up a few verses to the beginning of chapter seventeen we can find it easily enough. Jesus, at this point in Luke’s account, has just finished speaking to the Pharisees the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, which we heard proclaimed last week, and then, turning to his own disciples, he warns them: woe to him by whom temptations come! It would be better that a millstone be hung around his neck and that he be cast in the sea! So take heed to rebuke sinners that they might turn from sin, for even if a man sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times turns back in repentance, even so seven times you must forgive him.

Thus, having heard these sayings, the apostles turn to Jesus and ask for an increase in faith. One can, in this context, detect a hint of fear in their voices – fear lest, like the rich man, they be seduced by riches, fear lest they become a cause of sin to others, fear that they might lack the courage to rebuke the sinner, fear that they might struggle to forgive and forgive again. These demands of the Christian faith truly are demanding – to be a follower of Christ is not for the faint hearted, but rather, as Jesus himself again and again makes plain throughout his teaching, means dedicating oneself totally and entirely, giving all that one has and all that one is in imitation of Christ. And as Jesus continues to unpack for his disciples just what that means, with this dramatic talk of millstones and unreserved forgiveness, the disciples grow somewhat intimidated, and so they ask for an increase in faith.

Jesus’ reply to this request is, perhaps, confusing at first glance, but consider: The apostles ask for greater faith because they feel that they cannot do all that Jesus is asking of them without this increase, so great do the demands seem to them. But Jesus tells them that, even though the tiniest bit of faith would be enough to work marvels, that in fact what he has asked of them is not marvelous, but merely routine. In completing the demands of the Christian life, the twelve can only say at the end of it: We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.

For this is a danger into which we can readily fall; when considering some aspect of our Christian commitment, such as forgiving that person who wronged us, or witnessing to Christ in some particular circumstances, or giving up some particular sin to which we are attached, we cry out “Lord, increase my faith so that I can do this!” as if what is being asked of us is so great and so difficult that it requires some extraordinary outpouring of faith to be achieved, when really it is a quite ordinary and quite routine part of the Christian life. Perhaps it is not greater faith that is needed, but rather courage and perseverance and resolve, for what is asked of us is not beyond the call of everyday Christian duty.

Indeed, rather than asking from God a superabundant outpouring of faith in response to the daily challenges of Christian living, we might perhaps instead turn to the words of St. Paul to Timothy: Stir into flame the gift of God that you have received. For it is not the case that we have not received faith. Consider, for instance, the case of a child who is baptized. That child, though he cannot speak, truly receives the gift of faith. It is poured out upon him by the action of the Holy Spirit, operative in the prayers of the minister, the pouring of the water, the anointing of the oil. From the mere fact that the sacrament is performed, the gift of faith and the forgiveness of sins is conveyed, for which reason the Church speaks of the sacraments as operating ex opera operato¸ that is from the work worked, automatically, one might almost say.

But of course, this is not all that there is. For while it is certainly true the sacraments take effect ex opera operato, they nevertheless produce a greater effect and become more fruitful in proportion as the dispositions of those who receive them become better. And this why, to again speak of baptism, such a weighty obligation is laid upon parents and godparents. For the grace of baptism is truly given to a child merely by the fact of that child being baptized, but if that grace, if that faith, is to be fruitful, then the parents and godparents must take care that that child is raised in the faith, that he or she develops the proper dispositions that allow that gift of faith to flower as the child grows and matures, and, if you will permit me a digression, parents and godparents who fail to do this are by the negligence of their responsibilities heaping up judgement for themselves.

But to return to our main point, as it is with the growing up of a baptized child, so it is with us as well: we do not need so much a new outpouring of faith so much as we must strive to stir into flame that gift of faith which we have already received, which we can do by approaching the sacraments with proper dispositions by which the grace that they objectively convey might become, in us and for us, subjectively fruitful.

And so, for instance, consider this eucharist which we will momentarily celebrate. Do you discern there the body and blood of Christ? In approaching the sacrament, are you cognizant of the fact that you approach your Lord and your God? Do you approach him with a pure heart, washed clean by frequent confession, free from grave sin? In a word, are you well-disposed to receive him?

If you are not, then strive to develop these holy dispositions that make for a worthy communion, dispositions which are themselves developed through spiritual practices, such as regular prayer and scripture reading, regular confession and attentiveness during the liturgy. For then, becoming fruitful soil for the reception of God’s freely-given grace, we will find, perhaps, that we are not lacking in faith after all, and that what God has asked of us is not too demanding, but is rather that ordinary kind of service of which the completion is both our duty as well as our joy.