Increase Our Faith, 32nd Monday (II), November 7, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Monday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Votive Mass of the Holy Eucharist
Alverna Center, Winona, Minnesota
Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester
November 7, 2022
Ti 1:1-9, Ps 24, Lk 17:1-6

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• At the beginning of our retreat together, we make our own the words of the apostles in today’s Gospel: “Increase our faith.” And Jesus reminds us of the power of faith, that if we have even a little faith, we can do the impossible, like transplanting mulberry trees into the sea.
• The apostles were provoked to ask Jesus for that gift because of his words about scandal and then forgiveness, and we can ponder them a little together, but we can also apply this petition to the theme of our retreat, dedicated to imitating what we celebrate and becoming catalysts for the Eucharistic Revival of the Church in the United States.
• Jesus begins the passage talking about scandal and the damage it causes for others’ growth in faith. “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,” the Lord says, “but woe to the one through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” Jesus is clearly describing the punishment scandalous behavior warrants. But at the same time that he mentions a millstone, he wants to help unshackle someone from that millstone through mercy. One of the most important parts of our life of faith, is our recognition that just as God never tires of forgiving us, we should never tire of asking him for forgiveness and of sharing a similar mercy with others. This is hard. It requires great humility to ask for forgiveness. It requires greater humility to give it. Jesus is calling us not merely to give people a second chance, but an eighth chance. And in another part of the Gospel he says, depending upon the translation, that we need to give a 78th chance or a 491st chance. In order to be capable of doing this, we need his help, we need the strength that comes from faith. That’s why we humbly beg, “Increase our faith!”
• In the first reading, St. Paul describes the qualities for the discernment of priests and bishops precisely so that they won’t cause scandal but rather bring people to imitate God. He says that they need to be blameless, which is the opposite of scandalous; married only once, meaning that they can live chastely and not be men who had to marry after the death of a first wife, because then probably they wouldn’t be able to live the continent chastity required; with believing children who are not accused of licentiousness or rebellious, because if a father can’t raise his own children in the faith, how can he raise others’ children in the faith?; not arrogant, because he must be a humble servant like Christ; not irritable, because he must love even those who annoy him; not a drunkard because he must be sober and alert; not aggressive, but meek; not greedy for sordid gain, but poor in spirit because the kingdom he seeks is the Lord’s; hospitable because he sees Christ in the stranger saying, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me”; a lover of goodness, so that his virtue is not just in seemingly virtuous needs but comes from a good fruit-producing tree; temperate since he must have self-mastery; just, since he should be right with God and fair with others; self-controlled since he must be disciplined to be a disciple and help form other disciples; hold fast to the true message as taught so that by his life he can exhort the faithful and refute opponents; and in short, holy, dwelling in and reflecting the holiness of God.
• When a priest or a bishop or a Christian does not live with these traits, it obviously does impact people’s faith. They have high expectations of those who have been given much in the Lord’s service. We are all held to high expectations because we wear clerics. They expect us to behave like Jesus, to speak like him, to love like him, to be merciful like him. We even have high expectations of each other. We can be scandalized when fellow priests, or bishops, live in a spiritually worldly way, make decisions as serpents without any glimpse of the purity of doves, those who speak more like sailors than they do the Lord. Today Jesus is calling us to a higher standard, reminding us that by faith in him, by his power, we can live up to that standard, so that we might draw people to him by our behavior rather than drive them away.
• Within the context of the Eucharist, we can draw people to Christ as icons or we can repel them as functionaries or bureaucrats. St. Thomas Aquinas has had the Church, especially her ministers, regularly cry out: praestet fides supplementum sensuum defectui (“may faith offer a supplement to the defect of the senses”), fac me tibi semper magis credere (“make me always believe in you more”), and ad firmandum cor sincerum sola fides sufficit (“only faith suffices to strengthen a sincere heart”). During this retreat, we’re asking for increased faith, to trust in Jesus’ words, to act on them, to treat him in the Eucharist like we would have treated him if we were walking with him in Galilee. We ask him to increase our longing to see the face of God under the humble appearances of our food. As St. Thomas had us pray, Iesu quem velatum nunc aspicio. Oro fiat illud quam tam sitio. Ut te revelata cernens facie visu sim beatus tuae gloriae (“O Jesus, whom I look at now veiled, I pray that what I thirst for will be done, that recognizing you revealed under appearances, I may be blessed by the sight of your glory.”) We ask him to give us his mercy so that we may ascend the mountain of the Lord and stand in his holy place, with sinless hands and clean heart.
• The means by which the Lord most seeks to augment our faith each day happens at Mass. He strengthens our faith by what he teaches us in the Liturgy of the Word. He strengthens us even more by entering into us in Holy Communion. We know that if we receive a particle of the host the size of a mustard seed, we’re receiving within Him who can strengthen us to do all things. As we consume his precious blood given for the remission of sins, this is the way by which we’re able to go out to forgive others their sins. This is the means by which we are strengthened never to give scandal but instead become “signs of contradiction,” just like Jesus, capable of bringing people to conversion, to the forgiveness he wants to give, and to holiness. Lord, increase our faith!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Gospel

Lk 17:1-6

Jesus said to his disciples,
“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,
but woe to the one through whom they occur.
It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck
and he be thrown into the sea
than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.
Be on your guard!
If your brother sins, rebuke him;
and if he repents, forgive him.
And if he wrongs you seven times in one day
and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’
you should forgive him.”And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you would say to this mulberry tree,
‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

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