Brothers, this Sunday the God’s word
offers us two topics of reflection that apparently do not have relation
between them, but they are closely united.
The first one is about faith, the second
one goes in the line of the humility in the service. Probably, we
should stop in the first one, because the first reading suggests it
to us in the answer that God gives the prophet Habakkuk (and also
by the brief teaching of Jesus to His apostles, in the Gospel from
today): the just person will live by his faith; but the second topic,
the one of the faithful and disinterested service, is important and
very united with the first one, because it is an expression of the
true faith. Let us review each of the readings by which God makes
us believe in His knowledge.
We have to locate the first reading
that was taken from the prophet Habakkuk, in the times of the tyrannous
king Joachim. Habakkuk is lamented with God because of the amount
of injustices that he sees in the town: robbery, violence, and rebellions.
God answers him that He will send the Chaldeans
to
them as a punishment against them. But, in the part of the text that
is not going to be read today, the prophet makes God notice that this
decision will make worse the situation and that the just people will
suffer because of the sins of the sinners, but God answered him that
he must be calm because just the sinners will suffer, the just people
will live by their faith, it means that the people, that believe firmly
that God can save us and wants to saves us, will save themselves.
According to the prophetic text, faith is a total confidence in God
Who saves people that put their confidence in Him. People that are
arrogantly self-sufficient will be lost.
When the human being has faith in spite
of not seeing exit to the situation, because it exceeds the human
forces, it means that he has the possibility of living in a different
and superior environment that allows him to achieve the things that
he wants. When the man has faith, he can do the things that are not
possible through the human forces.
My brothers, this faith is not something
abstract, as many times we understand it; the faith has God as a center.
It is to believe in God and to believe Him, and for us, the Christians,
it is to believe in Jesus Christ, and to allow ourselves to learn
by His teachings and by His exigencies, with which faith is also obedience.
My brothers, this faith is presented
as a gift, although a gift that we can and we must increase, in the
Gospel. How does faith grow? Theoretically it is easy: simply letting
it act, but we have also to ask God that he increases it in us, because
faith is a gift, for that reason, the apostles ask: increase our faith.
“Jesus supposes that the faith, that at the moment the apostles have,
is not even of the size of a mustard grain”, but He indicates that
“the fundamental attitude of the disciple is to request: increase
our faith. This faith, with all its possibilities of development,
if it is genuinely Christian, it has limitless powers”. (Joseph A.
Fitzmyer, the Gospel according to Saint Luke, III, 720).
The second teaching is also oriented
to faith; it invites us to consider it like a gift. My brothers, it
is here where we have to stop for some considerations that have to
do with the way in which we believe. We often act in an attitude of
an interested faith. We believe to get something: “have a lot of faith
and you will obtain such thing” we listen to it or sometimes we say
it, but the teaching of Jesus is that we must not forget that we only
are servants and, even though we do everything as it was ordered to
us, we can not expect any reward.
This makes us realize that before to
demand, we must be thankful for all the goods that have been given
us gratuitously. We, as believers, must not forget that the maximum
good, that we have received, is the salvation which has been given
us in the person, and in the mystery of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
It is not something that we can gain or deserve, we have just to thank
for it. To serve God is a gift that we do not deserve, and it is
not enough. This is the central point of faith. Dear brothers, let
us review our way to believe: is my faith obedience? Is there a total,
trusted and thanked availability in our faith? Is our availability
total for the work of the kingdom?
That fidelity that the prophet Habakkuk
talks about is reviewed in all its depth in the examples of the apostles
that beg and also in the faithful servant of the parabola with which
Jesus educates us.
The
Eucharist reaches its true sense and all its richness, only in faith.
That faith with which we approach to celebrate and to live the mystery
of God’s love, that has been given us in the death of His Son, as
a supreme and matchless gift. Let us thank the gift of the Eucharist
that nourishes and increases our faith every Sunday, and that it is
not about quantity, it is about quality! In each Eucharist this miracle
can be done, a true miracle that every time our faith is deeper and
mature!
Our
little girl and sweet mother lady, the virgin of Guadalupe who always
believes with absolute faith, who always knew to say Yes to God, She
always shows us the way of believing in faith through the obedience
to the Holy Spirit. Amen.
