{"id":13786,"date":"2022-10-02T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T23:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/turski.blog\/?p=13786"},"modified":"2022-10-02T00:00:16","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T23:00:16","slug":"27th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=13786","title":{"rendered":"27th Sunday in Ordinary Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

The car park at St Joseph\u2019s used to be quite a dark place at night. To make it better lit, a company was asked to survey the location, propose a solution, and give us a quotation. The latter almost made me faint on receipt. The proposal to put some lights around the car park would be staggeringly costly. Then, one evening when I was leaving the church, I noticed that the streetlight in the middle of Great Northern Road, just on the other side of the car park wall, would adequately light the car park, but it was obscured by the evergreen eucalyptus tree. I realised that the car park was so dark because of the shadow cast by the tree. Suddenly the solution was straightforward and cost-free: move the tree some twenty metres southward and voil\u00e0. I quickly went home, gathered all my faith and prayed as instructed by Jesus in today\u2019s gospel: \u201cWere your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, \u201cBe uprooted and planted in the sea,\u201d and it would obey you.\u201d<\/em> I didn\u2019t have to move the eucalyptus tree as far as the sea; it would most likely have breached some council regulations. Twenty metres within St Joseph\u2019s grounds would suffice and be easy peasy. I left the tree undisturbed overnight so it could settle down into its new spot. The next morning, I found the tree standing firmly in the same place as the night before. The disappointing result could have been due to one of three causes: a) the instruction was exclusively applicable to mulberry trees, b) I didn\u2019t speak to the tree directly as per instruction, or c) my faith wasn\u2019t strong enough. If the latter were the case, I should have been worried as a Catholic priest\u2026<\/p>\n

At first glance, religious faith is a relatively simple concept. It implies the existence of a divine being with extraordinary power and influence well beyond human capabilities and comprehension. That divine being requires or expects worship in one form or another. More advanced religious faiths tend to develop the whole system of theology (understanding of the faith) and liturgy (a set of rituals performed as acts of communal worship). This overly simplified definition of religious faith is surprisingly common. But this is not the faith requested by Jesus\u2019 disciples in today\u2019s gospel: \u201cIncrease our faith\u201d <\/em>nor explained by him in response: \u201cWere your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, \u201cBe uprooted and planted in the sea,\u201d and it would obey you.\u201d<\/em> The theology and liturgy create a very important spiritual framework. However, this framework has very little meaning on its own. Jesus\u2019 response indicated that the requested faith was something active and impactful – you know, replanting trees is no mean feat!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s gospel offers very little to further our understanding of the living faith, so we have to consider the much wider context of the New Testament. One classic passage, often used at funerals, comes from the gospel of St John: \u201cDon\u2019t be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father\u2019s house. I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back. Then I will take you with me so that you can be where I am.\u201d (14:1-3)<\/em> Here Jesus called his disciples to trust His word, His promises. This is the crucial aspect of the living faith: it\u2019s my positive response to God\u2019s word and promises. We use the same mental mechanism all the time in our daily lives. When we buy products, we trust they will offer us what the seller promised. We trust traders that they will provide services at the declared timescale, cost and quality. But unless we are totally naive, we base our trust on certain premises. We read online reviews, ask others for advice or opinion, check references, sign a contract and so on\u2026<\/p>\n

In my chats with people who have lost their faith and those whose marriages have collapsed I have found a common factor: in both cases, faith and love respectively were taken for granted as something effortlessly happening with minimal or no personal involvement. Only later they discovered that love requires constant effort to build it up in order to withstand challenges and difficulties. It\u2019s the same with the living faith – we have to take care of it and build it up. It doesn\u2019t simply happen\u2026 How do we do that? St Paul said that \u201cfaith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.\u201d (Romans 10:17)<\/em> St Jerome, one of the finest interpreters of the Bible said: \u201cif, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ<\/u>.\u201d<\/em> No surprise then that the living faith is being replaced by superstitions, dependence on religious articles treated as amulets or ritualistic devotions offering a certain outcome as if God could be forced to act in a specific way. This kind of superficial piety usually fails in the face of challenging circumstances and leads to disappointment at best or falling out with God at worst. The living faith is different; as St Paul explained: \u201cthe Scriptures say, \u201cAnyone who trusts in him will never be disappointed.\u201d […] The Lord of all people richly blesses everyone who looks to him for help. Yes, \u201ceveryone who trusts in the Lord will be saved.\u201d (Romans 10:11-13)<\/em> The living faith never fails because it isn\u2019t built on false premises or expectations. It\u2019s the strength in difficulties, a shelter in troubles, consolation in grief. And who knows, it might even help to replant trees.<\/p>\n

\n

Image by Ulrike Leone<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The car park at St Joseph\u2019s used to be quite a dark place at night. To make it better lit, a company was asked to survey the location, propose a solution, and give us a quotation. The latter almost made me faint on receipt. The proposal to put some lights around the car park would be staggeringly costly. Then, one evening when I was leaving the church, I noticed that the streetlight in the middle of Great Northern Road, just on the other side of the car park wall, would adequately light the car park, but it was obscured by the evergreen eucalyptus tree. I realised that the car park was so dark because of the shadow cast by the tree. Suddenly the solution was straightforward and cost-free: move the tree some twenty metres southward and voil\u00e0. I quickly went home, gathered all my faith and prayed as instructed by Jesus in today\u2019s gospel: \u201cWere your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, \u201cBe uprooted and planted in the sea,\u201d and it would obey you.\u201d I didn\u2019t have to move the eucalyptus tree as far as the sea; it would most likely have breached some council regulations. Twenty metres within St Joseph\u2019s grounds would suffice and be easy peasy. I left the tree undisturbed overnight so it could settle down into its new spot. The next morning, I found the tree standing firmly in the same place as the night before. The disappointing result could have been due to one of three causes: a) the instruction was exclusively applicable to mulberry trees, b) I didn\u2019t speak to the tree directly as per instruction, or c) my faith wasn\u2019t strong enough. If the latter were the case, I should have been worried as a Catholic priest\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-c"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}