Fr. Anastasius Reiser, OSB - celebrant
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
In the gospel today, Jesus is talking to his disciples about faith. They were asking him: “increase our faith!”
Several people talked to me in these days, that the situation of life is going worse. And that they are about to lose their faith because of the problem of these days. There is the inflation; everything you need to buy, is more expensive as it was before. There is the war in Ukraine, where the Russians playing around with nuclear weapons and threatens the world with unnecessary demonstration of might and power. There is a change in the climate systems around all parts of the world, in which we can see, that systems of rain and dry season are changing in a way the people didn’t experienced before. These things, and of course other personal problems, bring people to that point of questioning their faith. But ARE these reasons to question our faith?
Back to the apostles: I think, they had similar questions of life, that we have today as well. The apostles were not yet Saints. They were still disciples, that means students, who are still learners. The faith of the apostles had to increase. Even when we remember the situation of Jesus on the cross. The disciples ran away. Only the women remained at the cross. Until the third day when Jesus himself came into the house of the disciples. And then they got the Holy Spirit as a gift to INCREASE their faith. And from that moment on they could be called APOSTLES! What means: To be sent! And you can only send someone in pastoral work who has faith!
The image of the mustard seed which Jesus uses to explain how big he thinks the faith could grow, is an image for to explain how the faith can grow. It doesn’t say something about the faith of the disciples. The disciples left already everything for Jesus and that is a faith which is beyond all the faith the normal people had at this time. So there was already a big faith in the disciples.
But it is interesting to look to that image of a small seed which becomes a big tree. Every gardener had that experience in May when she or he plants small seeds in the soil and big plants come out of it. It’s amazing how fast small seeds are developing during the first month. To get the harvest of fruits during the summer. And even later, may be now in October or November, when you have to clean up the garden and make it ready for winter. Than you recognize how big small seed can become.
It was yesterday, October 1st. We celebrated in the church the feast day of St. Therese of Lisieux, or as we call her: Therese, the little flower. She was a Saint which we can call a small seed, a small flower, who became a big tree in the Carmelite Order. Her faith was already so big, that no one could stop her to enter religious life. Even the Pope Leo XIII had to admit that something is going on with that child and encouraged her to continue her way with God. The permission to enter the Carmelites Sisters she got from the local Bishop. Because they saw in that little child Therese the seek which could become a big tree in faith.
And when we have a closer look to the biography of St. Therese, then we see: It’s all about love. The love to God was leading her the way she had to go. Love is also for our human life something special. It is in the beginning something very small. After a while when it is growing it can become like a tree that a whole family can live under when people get married. Do you know what is the difference between those Saints like Therese and the disciples? And of course, of those people who have their sorrows of every day? The difference is that the small seed in the hand of the gardener has no problem to be a small seed! It doesn’t matter to the seed, that it is very small in the beginning.
That brings us to the second part of the gospel today. To become a servant and to do what has to be done. And not to ask for any payment, reward or compensation. To do, what has to be done.
In Philippians 2 the apostle Paul writes about Jesus: Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, 6 Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. 7 Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, 8 he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. 9 Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
That is the new life! The little flower which became in the form of the cross the tree of life! Jesus was sent by his father, went into the obedience and followed the path he HAD to go. Like the seed he had no problem to be the seed. He was thrown into the reality of life of his days. He grew and became a man. Without fear – because it was his destiny to say the truth – he spoke to the authorities, to the poor and the sick. And he didn’t ask who he was, or what he was. John 18:37 “So Pilate said to him, ‘Then you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.’”
Jesus is talking to the disciples as a group! “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed…” It means he likes to increase the faith of the disciples as a group! (It’s the “you to many, not only a “you” to one person.) If we face problems together it would strengthen us. Because we are able to share the problems with other people. Look to the people of the Ukraine. They feel a solidarity among them they haven’t had before the war. There is a political will among the people to oppose the Russian aggressor. The individual person may be afraid in front of this big and powerful enemy. But the people as a group feel strength and solidarity.
And that is the second difference between us and the Saints: We are lost in individual problems and are not connected to our brothers and sisters who could support us. The faith IN the church – not the big church around the world, more the faith in the local church here in Schuyler, or in our community – that would be the support which would increase our faith. That is a faith which pushes back the aggressor Russia out of Ukraine. That is the faith which supports us in our daily questions of our life, in which every one of us would be too small to solve it. But as a group we are able to manage it.
And in this way, I understand to increase our faith. From a small seed to a big tree. We together as a group are called to follow Christ. The disciples as a group, we as Christians in Parish and Community. No one is alone, no one is too small. God has a plan with us in the communion WITHIN other people, so that everyone gets support of others and will arrive in the Kingdom of Heaven. So let us support each other and help each other. Amen.