My father was extremely sensitive to the way we asked him a question. He did not like it when we asked him a question that we knew the answer to. He also disliked when we asked a question in an ambiguous way, almost as if trying to test where he stood regarding the matter of the question. However, what he disliked the most was when we asked him a question, “the wrong way.”
For instance, once I wanted to go out with my friends and I needed to ask him to borrow his car. I approached him and I said to him, “Dad, are you going to be busy on Friday night?” My father never went out and if he were going to be “busy” he knew that I would have known about it. Noticing that I was beating around the bush he asked me in turn, “Was your intention to ask if you could use the car to go out on Friday?”
I immediately realized I had asked the wrong question. He said yes, but he also taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten. He said to me, “Be sure to ask the question you mean to ask and be clear in conveying what you really need when you ask that question. In that way you will have more chances to be listened to by the person you are addressing.” I found my father’s advice extremely helpful in many situations in my life. It seems to me that the apostles could have used that advice in the passage we hear in today’s gospel.
Petition
As we hear in the gospel, “the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’” By making their petition in this way, the apostles are implicitly telling the Lord, “we sure have faith, we just need you to increase it a little bit.” Judging by what the Lord said to the apostles after their petition, we can realize that the apostles made their petition the wrong way, just as when I asked my father for the car.
Indeed, the Lord says, “if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.” I do not doubt the apostles were convinced they had faith, at least as little as a mustard seed. However, can we say from the testimony of the gospels that they could indeed tell a mulberry tree to be planted in the sea, without doubting that this could happen?
No
The answer is no. They were not totally convinced of that. All throughout the gospels we can see that the apostles many times doubted and did not fully trust what the Lord was telling them. In the most crucial moment of Jesus’ mission, when he arrived at the hour to enter into His Paschal mystery, the disciples were full of fear. They were terrified to be identified with him, afraid to be caught and to suffer the same treatment. That is why all of them abandoned him and were locked in themselves. They were all paralyzed by the fear of death.
Moreover, when he rose from the dead and he appeared to them, many of them were hung in their disbelief. Jesus rebuked them for that. The apostles give evidence of not having fully grasped what the first reading states so emphatically when it says, “the just one, because of his faith, shall live.” Thus, they did not ask the Lord properly and they certainly did not convey what they really needed.
“Lord, Give Us Faith”
How should the apostles have made their petition to the Lord? How could they have conveyed what they really needed? I believe that they could simply have said, “Lord, give us faith.” Faith is a gift that we need to ask the Lord constantly. Faith is what allows us to ask for what we need, which is the Spirit of God in us; to wait patiently that the Lord acts in our lives; and to live according to God’s plan for us. We cannot give faith to ourselves. We cannot “pretend” to have faith.” And, we cannot identify faith with strong religious beliefs, or strong religious sentiments, or with knowing a lot about God and the Church.
Faith is verified by works that make evident that a new nature, which is the nature of God, acts in us. True faith is the fruit of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. The Spirit that communicates to us the life of God and empowers us to live eternal life already here on earth. Faith frees us from the fear of death and from the fear of giving our lives for the others, loving, and serving them, even those who act as our enemies. In sum, faith is the indicator that in us there has been a total transformation. We have passed from being creatures of God to be children of God, heirs of His life and of His love.
Enlightened by this word, let us ask the Lord the right question: Let us ask Him to give us the gift of faith, and the desire to defend it and to nurture it in our hearts. God bless you all!
[Readings: Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4; 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14; Luke 17:5-10]
