The Little Way to Increased Faith, 27th Sunday (C), October 2, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
October 1, 2022
Hab 1:2-3.2:2-4, Ps 95, 2 Tim 1:6-8.13-14, Lk 17:5-10

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

The following text guided today’s homily: 

• Two of the greatest compliments that Jesus gave in the Gospel were to pagans, a Syrophoenician woman and a Roman Centurion. To the first, Jesus said, “Woman, great is your faith.” To the latter, he said with amazement, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” Faith is what led to the trust in him and in his power to work stupendous miracles for their loved ones. In today’s Gospel, the apostles, having heard Jesus speak about the consequences of scandal and the need to forgive without limit were led to beg him, “Increase our faith!” It’s a prayer that the Church puts on all of our lips today. The first reading from the prophet Habakkuk tells us explicitly, in the midst of violence, destruction, strife, discord and misery, that “the just man lives by faith,” and the apostles wanted to be such men. The Lord wants to grant us such an increase, too, so that we may live by faith in the son of God who loves us and gave his life for us.
• The way we evaluate whether we are living by faith, Jesus tells us in the Gospel, is whether we are faithful in “doing all [we] have been commanded to do.” Through Habakkuk, it’s revealed by whether we patiently wait for the Lord to fulfill his promises. For St. Paul in today’s second reading, it’s whether we “take as [our] norm the sound words” that we have heard “in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” and guard the faith as a “rich trust” that we seek to “stir into a flame.” God wants us to be on fire with faith. He wants us to take the spark of faith and fan it into a bonfire. If it’s the size of a mustard seed, he wants it to grow into the size of a mountain. He wants us to recognize and treat our faith as a treasure, and to look at his “sound words” and all he commands us, to view the settings of violence, destruction, strife, discord and misery, or the need to forgive over and again or to set the standard of exemplary conduct, as all part of the path to progress in faith.
• The apostles’ prayer for increased faith shows us their humble recognition that up until then they were not living enough by faith and that they needed the Lord’s help to grow. This morning we come here with the same prayer to the Lord, to increase our faith, so that we might become truly great in faith.
• To ask for an increase in faith means to ask for three things, because faith means these three things.
• It means, first, to grow in an obedient trust in God. We see this type of trust in Abraham, our father in faith, and in Mary, our mother in faith. When God asked seventy-five year-old Abraham to leave everything he had behind and journey to a far-away land, Abraham trusted in God and did so (Gen 12:1 ff). He trusted in God when God promised that he and Sarah in their old age would finally conceive a son (Gen 15:5; Gen 18:1 ff). He trusted in God even when God had him wait almost 25 years — even after he was 75 — to fulfill that promise. He trusted in God when, 13 years later, God seemed to be asking him to sacrifice that son, Isaac, even though Isaac was the son God promised through whom he would make Abraham the father of many nations (Gen 22:1ff). Abraham trusted in the Lord so much that he would do anything God asked. Similarly, Mary trusted in God’s words through Gabriel that she would conceive a child without the help of a man and that child would be the Son of God (Gen 1:35). She trusted in God when Simeon prophesied that her Son the Messiah would be a “sign of contradiction” rather than a triumphant king and that her own soul would be pierced (Lk 2:34-35). She trusted when she saw her Son carry the wood of his sacrifice up the same mountain that Isaac ascended and no angel held back the hands of the Roman soldiers as they nailed him to the Cross. She trusted when she held her Son’s limp, bloodied body in her arms. She trusted that God would bring great good, in fact our salvation, out of all of this evil. Likewise for us to ask God to “increase our faith!” is to ask Him to increase our trust in Him, so that we might confidently obey him in everything, but especially in the most difficult times and circumstances. On Wednesday this week we will celebrate the feast of St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish cloistered nun through whom Jesus revealed to us devotion to his Divine Mercy. Jesus had her paint an image of his blessing us with his mercy at the bottom of which he instructed her to write, “Jesus, I trust in you.” The first way we’re called to grow in faith is through trusting in God, trusting in his ways, trusting in how all things — even suffering, or death, or crucifixion — work out for the good for those who love him. When we pray, “Lord increase our faith,” God responds to infusing within us this gift, but he also puts us in tests and circumstances — like he did with Abraham and Mary, like Habakkuk and Paul — in which we are able to grow that moral muscle. Whenever we entrust ourselves to God in such circumstances, we grow in faith.
• The second meaning of faith is the content of what we believe on the basis of our trust in God who reveals those truths. This meaning refers to the various truths of the faith, found in the Creed we profess each Sunday, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and embedded throughout the Church’s prayer. To appeal to the Lord “to increase our faith!” means to ask him to give us a greater knowledge and understanding of the truths of faith he reveals. The Lord wants to augment our assimilation of the doctrine of the faith, to help us cooperate with the Holy Spirit as he seeks to “guide us to all truth” (Jn 16:12-13). But in general God won’t do so without our effort. To pray for increased faith implies a willingness to make the effort, in response to God’s help, to get to know our faith better, by studying the Catechism, by reading what the Holy Father writes to us, by praying Sacred Scripture, by taking advantage of the incredible materials available now in books, podcasts, videos, online, from programs like Word on Fire, or Formed, Dynamic Catholic, or Ascension Press, or so many solid Catholic publishing houses. To ask God to increase our faith without a willingness to put more effort into learning and understanding the content of the faith would be like a youngster’s asking God to help him get a 100 on a test without ever wanting to study. It is only in such a process of growing in faith through working with the light of the Holy Spirit to understand it better that the Lord makes us ever more persons of faith.
• The third meaning of faith is lived faith, what St. Paul calls “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). St. James reminds us that “faith without works is dead,” and if we have true faith, it will impact — and impact in a big way — how we think, how we speak, how we behave. If our faith doesn’t radiate through our actions we’re not big believers. St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control,” and for that reason we should “not be ashamed of [our] testimony to our Lord, … but bear [our] share of the hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God.” And we are called to that same courage, love, self-control and witness. To be a believer is to commit to live what we believe. We believe in the word of God and therefore we treasure it and read it. We believe in the Sacrament of Baptism and bring our children at the earliest instant. We believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and so come to Mass, because we recognize that there can be nothing greater than being in the presence of God and receiving him within. We believe in the need for the forgiveness of sins and so we humbly come to confession to receive the mercy Jesus sent out the apostles on Easter Sunday to bestow in his name. We believe in the commandments, the beatitudes, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, in simple right and wrong, and seek, with God’s help, to live by the faith and morals. To ask God to increase our faith is to desire, with God’s help, to grow in steadfast practice of the faith.
• Today as we echo the apostles’ prayer for increased faith, God wants to help us grow in trust of him, in knowledge and understanding about the truths of our faith, and in our putting our faith into action.
• St. Teresa of Calcutta, of course, taught by words and witness how to live by faith. When she described the Spirit of the Missionaries of Charity, she said everything started with “loving trust” in imitation of Jesus and Mary. She said it implies faith in God’s omnipotence, wisdom and unfailing love; in the reality of the Son of God made man and in the truth of his teaching; in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us into Jesus; in God’s tender concern for us and fidelity to his promise that he will provide for our needs and for those of the poor; in the power of his name and in the intercession of Mary, Joseph and all the saints and angels. That loving trust in God also translates into the way we relate to his instruments, namely the Church and her teaching, religious superiors who take the place of Christ, and the brothers, sisters, and poor he sends us.
• But insofar as yesterday we celebrated the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, on Friday the 125^th anniversary of her birth into eternal life and mark this month the 25^th anniversary of her being made the youngest of the 37 doctors of the Church, it is fitting for us to examine what she called her “little way of trust and love,” which is a way of growing in faith, of increasing in spiritual maturity while remaining spiritually childlike. Inspiring what she left us is one way by which Christ has responded to the perennial petition of the Church to “increase our faith” in a way that is doable for everyone. Her little way of loving trust involves five different elements.
• First, it involves mature Christian dependence on God the Father. Often, as we grow up, we cease to relate to God the way we should, as his beloved children. We may not act quite as poorly as the prodigal son in the parable, who asked for his inheritance while his Father was still alive because to him the Father was already dead, but we often just want to “grow up” and leave home, to do things on our own, to be less dependent on him than we were before and more self-reliant and self-sufficient. To become like little children means to return to our true dependence on the Father and begin to allow him to continue to raise us to become perfected as he himself is perfect. The little way of spiritual childhood for St. Therese begins with grounding oneself in who the Father is, how much he loves us, and responding with love and trust as a child does to his or her parent. St. Therese once wrote, spiritual childhood “is to recognize our nothingness, to expect everything from God as a little child expects everything from its father; it is to be disquieted about nothing, and not to be set on earning our own living. … To be little is not attributing to oneself the virtues that one practices. … It is not to become discouraged over one’s faults, for children fall often, but they are too little to hurt themselves very much.” It’s a way of spiritual poverty. She linked two passages of the Gospel together to arrive at an important truth. Both passages point to a condition to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The first is to convert and become childlike. The second is become poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Becoming childlike and becoming poor in spirit are basically synonymous. As Therese made spiritual childhood her own, so she made her own poverty of spirit. She aspired to be nothing more than “a poor little child” who looks to her Father for everything and who obtains everything from Him because of this same poverty. She cultivated this poverty and wanted to keep nothing for herself, not even her merits and her good works. Dependence on God is the first way to grow in faith and love.
• The second is to trust in God and in his merciful love. Once we grasp that we are poor little children, then we learn how to relate to God and particularly to his mercy.  Talking about the mercy of God, she encouraged everyone to follow her lead and grasp God by the “heart.” She said: “Consider a small child who has displeased his mother, by flying into a rage or perhaps disobeying her; if he sulks in a corner and screams in fear of punishment, his mother will certainly not forgive his fault; but if he comes to her with his little arms outstretched, smiling and saying: ‘Kiss me, I won’t do it again,’ surely his mother will immediately press him tenderly to her heart, forgetting all that he has done… Of course she knows quite well that her dear little boy will do it again at the first opportunity, but that does not matter; if he takes her by the heart, he will never be punished…” She drew a conclusion: “I have long believed that the Lord is more tender than a mother. I know that a mother is always ready to forgive trivial, involuntary misbehavior on the part of her child. Children are always giving trouble, falling down, getting themselves dirty, breaking things – but all this does not shake their parents love for them.” Nor do our faults shake God’s love for us. She was able to have this child-like confidence in God’s love because she understood the whole meaning of the Incarnation. She once wrote that she could not understand how anyone could be afraid of a God who became a child. God became small precisely so that we shouldn’t be intimidated by him, so that we wouldn’t be afraid. The way of spiritual childhood is a way of meeting, learning and imitating the child Jesus, who teaches us in a very concrete way to relate to God. She wrote, “Jesus condescends to show me the only way that leads to this divine furnace (of divine love). It is the surrender of a small child who sleeps without fear in its father’s arms.” Relating as a spiritual child to the Child Jesus was one of the characteristic parts of her spirituality. She could never be afraid of a God who became a little baby. To trust in God’s unending and infinite mercy is the second way to grow in faith.
• The third us to nourish our sense of divine filiation through life according to the Holy Spirit. St. John Paul II wrote in 1997, in a document explaining why he was declaring her a doctor of the Church, that “the most authentic meaning of spiritual childhood” is “the experience of divine filiation, under the movement of the Holy Spirit.” When he visited Lisieux for the first time as Pope in 1980, he said that it was precisely the Holy Spirit that led St. Therese on this “little way” and helped her to walk it with great generosity. Not to be outdone by Pope Pius X who called her “the greatest saint of modern times,” Pope John Paul II in Lisieux said that she is, in fact, “our saint,” a saint for our times, and confessed that that was always the way he looked to her in his own life. He said that she grasped the “fundamental mystery,” the “reality of the Gospel,” that we have truly received “a spirit of adoption that makes us cry out ‘Abba, Father!’ The “little way,” he continued, is the way of “holy childhood,” adding that nothing could be more fundamental and universal than the fact that God is our Father and we are his beloved children. “To be a child, to become like a child, means to enter into the heart of the greatest mission to which Christ has called each of us: to recognize one is God’s beloved child and be occupied with the affairs of the Father,” just like Jesus was when he was 12 and discovered in the temple. This way of divine filiation is a way of love in the heart of the Church our mother. Life according to the Holy Spirit as children of God is the third way we grow in faith.
• The fourth is through humility. She believed that it was not necessary to accomplish heroic acts or “great deeds” in order to express her loving faith in God. She wrote, “Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.” She wrote: “Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires. I close the learned book which is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons; perfection seems simple; I see that it is enough to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself, like a child, into God’s arms. Leaving to great souls, to great minds, the beautiful books I cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because ‘only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet.” She sought holiness in the little things of every day: “I want to sanctify my heartbeats, my thoughts, my simplest actions, uniting them to his infinite merits.” When a novice once sighed, “When I think of everything I still have to acquire!,” she replied, “You mean, to lose! Jesus takes it upon himself to fill your soul in the measure that you rid it of its imperfections. … You are wanting to climb a great mountain and the good God is trying to make you descend it; he is waiting for you at the bottom in the fertile valley of humility.” She wasn’t discouraged by not feeing a call to the greatness of many of the great spiritual writers and martyrs: “Instead of being discouraged, I concluded that God would not inspire desires that could not be realized, and that I may aspire to sanctity in spite of my littleness. For me to become great is impossible. I must bear with myself and my many imperfections; but I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way – very short and very straight, a little way that is wholly new.” Humility is the fourth way of increased loving trust.
• Fifth and finally, it is by trusting and taking seriously God’s call to holiness and responding to his help and the means he provides. “Sanctity,” she wrote, “does not consist in performing such and such acts; it means being ready at heart to become small and humble in the arms of God, acknowledging our own weaknesses and trusting in his fatherly goodness to the point of audacity.” And she encouraged us to seek this with all our heart. “If you want to be a saint, it will be easy … you have but one goal: to give pleasure to Jesus.” This care for our Lord eventually becomes the essential mark of sanctity. But we can’t please God and become holy by halves. She wrote, “You cannot become half a saint. You must be a whole saint or no saint at all.” And she was hoping that we would be as committed to this as she was. After telling one of her two adopted priest brothers, “my way is all confidence and love,” she continued, “I hope that one day Jesus will make you walk by the same way as me.” Walking that way of St. Therese is the fifth means by which we grow in faith.
• St. Therese famously said on her deathbed: “I feel that my mission is about to begin, my mission of making God loved as I love him, of giving my little way to souls. If God answers my desires, my heaven will be spent on earth until the end of the world. Yes, I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth.” And the greatest good she wants to do is to help us follow trustingly in the way she took all the way to the vision of God in heaven, that way of faith that, with the Holy Spirit’s help, she constantly stirred into a flame that was able to illumine and warm the whole world.
• This Sunday, as we echo the apostles’ prayer for increased faith, God wants to help us grow in trust of him, in knowledge and understanding about the truths of our faith, and in our putting our faith into action. Jesus says that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can transplant mountain ranges into oceans. To make possible that increase in faith, he gives us himself on the inside in the Holy Eucharist. At the end of this Sunday’s Gospel, he says that the faithful servant is one who, after plowing or tending the sheep, enters the house, puts on an apron and continues to serve. Well, as we prepare to do what Jesus commanded, to “do this in memory of” him, we remember that Jesus, at the Last Supper, didn’t have the apostles wait on him, but rather girded himself with an apron and washed their. He promised elsewhere that if he finds his servants vigilant and faithful, he will again gird himself, have them recline at table and proceed to wait on them (Lk 12:37). That is what happens at the Holy Eucharist. Even though we come to serve him, he serves us. From the inside Jesus can and wants to help us live our faith, love our faith, give witness to our faith. After he has made our hearts burn during the Liturgy of the Word like he did for the disciples in Emmaus, so that we might recognize him in the Breaking of the Bread, we approach the altar to receive him within like a seed, knowing that he wants to grow like an Everest within, as he did in the lives of the apostles, of St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Teresa of Calcutta. They are all doing good for us from heaven, praying for us that we may live by faith and stir into a flame that gift of God so that those around us, and indeed the whole world, may be ignited!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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