INCREASE OUR FAITH

All of a sudden, the disciples put a crucial request to Jesus: Increase our faith. On another occasion, they had asked him, Teach us to pray.  As Jesus reveals God’s project to the disciples and the task he wants to give them, they feel that the faith they have had all their life since childhood is not enough for them to be able to respond to his call. They need a more robust and vigorous faith.

More than twenty centuries have passed. Throughout history, Jesus’ followers have remained faithful to the Gospel for years. There have been dark hours of disloyalty also. There were times of strong faith and of crisis and uncertainty. Do we not need once again to ask the Lord to increase our faith?

 Lord, increase our faith
Teach us that faith is not about believing something, but rather about believing in you, the Son of God made flesh, in order to open us to your Spirit, to let us grasp your Word, to learn to adopt in our lives your style of life and to follow closely your footsteps. You alone can be the “author and perfecter of our faith.”

Increase our faith
Give us a faith that is centered on what is essential, purified of false attachments and additions that lead us far from the core of your Gospel. Teach us to live our faith today, not based on external supports, but on your living presence in our hearts and in our believing communities.

Increase our faith
Make us live a more vital relationship with you, knowing that you, our Teacher and Lord, are the first, the best, the most valuable and attractive that there is in the Church. Give us a contagious faith that directs us toward a new phase of Christianity, one that is more faithful to your Spirit and to your path.

Increase our faith
Make us live identified with your project of God’s kingdom, collaborating realistically and with conviction in making life more human, as the Father wants. Help us to live our faith humbly and with passion for God and compassion for human beings.

Increase our faith
Teach us to live a life of conversion, a life that is more in accordance with the Gospel, without resigning ourselves to a watered-down Christianity where the salt has lost its taste and where the Church is strangely losing its leavening quality. Awaken among us the faith of witnesses and prophets.

Increase our faith
Let us no fall into a Christianity without the cross. Teach us to discover that faith does not consist in believing in the God that suits us, but in the One that strengthens our responsibility and develops our capacity to love. Teach us to follow you, taking up our cross daily.

Increase our faith
May we experience you risen in our midst, renewing our lives and breathing life into our communities.

October 2, 2016
27 Sunday in O.T. (C)
Luke 17, 5-10