In today’s Gospel text the apostles ask Jesus: “Increase our faith!” This is an intriguing request, because it approaches faith as something that Jesus can give, rather than a choice we make to believe.
Yet both of these are part of the Catholic definition of “faith”: it is a gift directly from Christ (an infused “theological virtue”), and it is an acceptance of that gift. So that by the gift of faith we are able to believe, and in our free will we choose to accept that gift and believe.
Both of these aspects of faith are displayed in today’s Gospel text. After the apostles ask for the gift of faith, Jesus responds by admonishing them to accept the gift of faith He has already given them, saying: “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” Jesus’s point, however, is not to urge them to seek after great power, but to show them that when a person truly accepts the gift of faith he will conform his life to what he believes in, and his actions will manifest his faith. So as Scripture tells us elsewhere: “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith” (Jas 2: 18).
Jesus goes on to illustrate his point with the example of the obedient servant. The man who has accepted the gift of faith does “what was commanded.” The master owes no thanks to the servant, because he had “only done what was [his] duty.” God gives the gift of faith, and man accepts that gift not merely by saying “I believe,” but by allowing what he believes to transform his everyday life. So if God gives and we simply use the gift, why do we deserve thanks? Should God say to us, “Thank you for receiving my gift”?
Faith is also not merely recognizing the fact that God exists, or even that Jesus is our Lord and Savior: “Even the demons believe — and shudder” (Jas 2:19). Yet many Christians incorrectly believe that we are saved “by faith alone” — sola fide. But this is clearly not the teaching of Scripture (“Man is justified by works and not by faith alone,” James 2:24). Faith that is not lived out in what a person thinks, does and says is not truly faith. It may be an acknowledgement of the gift, but it is not an acceptance of the gift.
And this is not simply an error of Protestant theology. Many Catholics also fall into this error of sola fide — albeit, usually in a much more simplistic way. They say: “As long as I believe in Jesus, even if I sin, I will still go to heaven.” But as Jesus tells His apostles: “Will any one of you, who has a servant…say to him…‘sit down at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me’?” Faith involves a response to the gift, and the one who has faith must therefore serve and obey the one in whom he professes faith.
As we meditate on this passage of the Gospel, we should echo the prayer of the apostles: “Increase our faith!” But we should also hear the admonition of Jesus, and accept the gift of faith He has already given us, and live that faith in our works — great and small — as His obedient servants.
Fr. De Celles is Parochial Vicar of St. Michael Parish in Annandale, Virginia.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
