Lord, Increase Our Faith!
Oct
7
Written by:
Sunday, October 07, 2007
27th Sunday Ordinary Time
October 7, 2007
Do you ever feel you need more faith? The disciples certainly did! This Sunday's gospel opens with the apostles saying, "Lord, increase our faith!" These were the same apostles who had seen Jesus heal the sick, raise the dead, and multiply the loaves, and still they felt their faith was inadequate! That's because no matter how many miracles the Lord performed, it still took an act of faith to believe that the flesh and blood man in front of the apostles was, in fact, God's son.
For a Christian, faith is everything in this world, because faith in Jesus opens the door that gives us purpose, meaning, and dignity as human beings, as well as eternal life. If we really believed in Jesus as the Son of God, if we really believed in the resurrection of the dead and the incredible eternity the Lord has planned for us, what different lives we would lead! All our attention would be on the Lord. Instead, we tend to "hedge our bets."
The best way that I know of to grow in faith is to make a daily decision that, no matter what happens in my life, I am going to thank God for it. Thanksgiving leads to greater faith, because it says to the Lord, "I trust you to work this situation out for the best in the long run." To become a person of gratitude is to become a person of the Eucharist, because the word Eucharist literally means "thanksgiving." And like the Eucharist, the more we praise and thank God, the more blessings he is able to multiply in our lives!
One of my favorite expressions is, "The future is purchased by the present." The person God wants you to become, a person of gratitude and faith, is completely dependant on the choices you and I will make today. When we ask the Lord to "increase our faith," he in his turn will ask us to take a risk: the risk of living a life of gratitude and thanksgiving to God,. This will open the floodgates of faith for us as well.
Father Gary