Homily for August 12th, 2017: Matthew 17:14-20.
Today’s gospel
reading gives us an example of Jesus using hyperbole. How so, you ask?
Webster’s dictionary says that hyperbole is “a statement exaggerated
fancifully, as for effect.” The American humorist Mark Twain was using
hyperbole when he said: “The first time I ever saw St. Louis
Helping people
understand the power of faith is the effect Jesus was aiming at when he spoke
the words in today’s gospel: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you
will say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move.” That
is as absurd as Mark twin claiming he could have bought Louis for 3 million
dollars. No one would expect a mountain to move on command.
What Jesus is
actually saying is that with faith we can accomplish the impossible. What is
faith, anyway? Many Catholics would probably say: faith is the list of truths
that we profess every Sunday in the creed. That is not wrong. But faith in that
sense is properly called the faith.
The primary
meaning of faith is trust. Even in
the Creed, we say “I believe in God.”
To believe in someone is to trust
that person. When we say we believe in God,
we’re saying that we trust him enough to entrust
our lives to him. Faith in that sense is not something that comes to us
naturally. It is a gift. And the one who gives it to us is God.
Each time we come
here we are praying that through his two tables of word and sacrament God will
deepen and strengthen our trust in him. We are like the man in Mark’s gospel
who comes to Jesus asking healing for his boy, who suffers terrible
convulsions. Jesus asks the man if he truly believes that Jesus has power to
heal. “I do believe,” the father replies. “Help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). With
this gospel reading Jesus is inviting us to make that man’s prayer our own.
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