Luke 17: 5-10
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Increase Our Faith
Today’s Gospel reading reminds me of the mustard seed jewelry that was popular with Christian women when I was a child in the 1940s and 1950s. Recently I did an online search for “mustard seed jewelry” and found it still very much available. The mustard seed symbolizes something very small that, with God’s help, can become something very great.
Earlier in Luke’s Gospel (with parallels in Mark and Matthew), Jesus tells a parable in which he compares the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed. It is a very small seed but can produce a large bush in which the birds of the air nest.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus again uses the image of a mustard seed. His Apostles ask him to increase their faith, and he tells them: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” (In Mark and Matthew, he tells them that with only this tiny bit of faith, they will be able to move mountains.)
As we pray each day for ourselves and for others, we might also say, “Increase our faith!” It seems important that we pray with real faith when we ask for what we ourselves need and for the healing of the world. Perhaps this faith will somehow enable God to work more effectively in us and work more effectively through us in this world.
—Fr. Bob Hagan, SJ, is a member of a community of senior Jesuits at Saint Ignatius Hall in Black Jack, Missouri. He gives spiritual direction, mostly online; gives sacramental care to the lay Catholics in the adjacent retirement community; writes occasional reflections for Jesuit Prayer; posts various daily items and a longer weekly reflection on the Sunday Mass readings on his Facebook site at Bob Hagan SJ; and drives fellow Jesuits who no longer drive wherever they want to go.
Prayer
God, the rock of our salvation, whose gifts can never fail, deepen the faith you have already bestowed and let its power be seen in your servants.
We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.
—ICEL Opening Prayer for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
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Pray with the monthly prayer intentions of the pope.