BECAUSE OF YOUR LITTLE FAITH

Mat 17:14-20

In today’s Gospel, Jesus heals a possessed boy. It is said that the disciples were unable to drive out the demons from this boy while Jesus was away in the mountain. After the healing, Jesus takes this opportunity to emphasize strong faith and trust for the apostles to be successful. He says to them: “It was because of your little faith. You failed because of your little faith.

What happened to the disciples? How is it that they had little faith? It could be that, as the disciples have received from Jesus the power to drive out evil spirits and to cure, thought that they are able to heal by themselves. They thought that they were the ones doing the healing rather than God doing it through them. They fell into the trap of saying: “I am the one doing this”; the trap of pride rather than trusting in the Lord. They fail to recognize the source of power to heal, Jesus Himself. And as the result, they fail.

We too, in our Christian life, there are times when we feel like we don’t have anything to improve anymore. Sometimes we have the attitude saying: “I am a good Christian, I have taken all the sacraments, I go to mass so I don’t have much more to do, and I know the Lord is with me.” In other words we think we have the right to get anything from the Lord. Or sometimes we are over-confident in ourselves, forgetting God, forgetting that our abilities are gifts from the Lord. Having become successful, we begin to think that we are capable of anything; we begin to think that our success is the fruit of our own abilities. With that we disconnect from God and we start failing.

Our life and relationship with the Lord can be compared with a garden that someone has planted. If he/she doesn’t water it and take care of it, he/she cannot expect good production. The apostles received from Jesus the power to drive out evil spirits and to cure. But they forgot to sustain their faith in a strong connection to Jesus. Today’s gospel is a reminder that we should focus on how to sustain our faith. Faith is to know one’s helplessness and to trust in the power of God acting through us. It is only when we acknowledge our own helplessness that we become open to God’s life-giving and healing love and allow the power of God’s love to work within us.

For us, let us not be glad that we have some special power, or special talent, or special ability, but rather be glad that God loves us and chooses us to show His love to our brothers and sisters.