Homily for the 27th Sunday Year C: Luke 17:5-10; DJC
The Gospel today begins immediately with an urgent request from the apostles to Jesus: Increase our faith! (Luke 17:5) It is their response to Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness, which is not included in today’s passage: that we are to rebuke our neighbour if they sin against us and forgive our neighbour as many times as they sincerely ask our forgiveness - literally “seven” times, which in the Jewish terms of the day meant without limit.
The words of Jesus leave the apostles feeling utterly helpless so they cry out “Increase our faith!” We meet similar reactions elsewhere: in response to Jesus’ teaching on marriage, the apostles react with amazement – it is better not to marry (cf. Matt 19:10); in response to Jesus teaching “that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” those who hear it exclaim almost despairingly – who then can be saved? (cf. Luke 18:25-26)
If that wasn’t enough, Jesus further explains that once we have fulfilled all the precepts of the Gospel, having done what is commanded we are to count ourselves as merely servants, who have only done our duty (Luke 17:10). How can we possibly meet the demands of the Gospel? It is impossible for us. Jesus tells us so: “For men it is impossible...” (Luke 18:27) but he quickly adds “...but with God everything is possible!”
By our own strength, to live the full demands of Christ’s teaching is impossible. We are too weak. Like the disciples we have to recognise our weakness and helplessness. This is essential to our sanctification.
St Thérèse of Lisieux whose feast we celebrated yesterday knew this, but with St Paul she could say “When I am weak then I am strong” - when I see my weakness more and more I discover I need God more and more. This is a wonderful discovery. Why? Another saint– Blessed Columba Marmion, whose feast is tomorrow says: “[God] wishes to enlarge our capacity; He wishes to make us sound the depth of our weakness, our insufficiency, so that, convinced of our powerlessness to pray, to work, to advance, we may place all our trust in Him … having emptied us of ourselves God will fill us with His own fullness” (from Christ, the Ideal of the Monk)
Emptied of ourselves, God then fills us with Himself when we trust in Him, have faith in Him. “It is trust and only trust that will lead us to God” St Thérèse famously said. She trusted so much in God that she asked for all the grace others did not or could not receive - “the waves of infinite tenderness” trapped within Jesus’ Heart to overflow into her soul. That is quite a lot!
Was that too bold a request?
Let us listen to today’s Collect “Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Holy Mother Church places on our lips today a request to God – to give more than we dare pray, because God surpasses all our merits and desires.
St Thérèse was not too bold - it is we who are not bold enough.
While on earth, the saints were greedy for one thing – grace. The saints are sponges for grace, like dry weary lands without water, being emptied of themselves, they soak up every last drop of the dew that fell from heaven – that “dew” which is the Holy Spirit, they were filled with God’s fullness. “Which one of you fathers would give his son a scorpion if he asked for an egg? ... how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Jesus tells us (Luke 11:11) . But we can only pray for this grace if we have faith “We must believe in order to pray” says St Augustine – he continues “we must ask God that the faith enabling us to pray may not fail”
Tragically we know that for many this faith in God’s grace and goodness has been damaged, even seemingly destroyed. Today particularly Holy Mother Church asks us to remember in our prayers all survivors of abuse whose lives have been ruined by the evil and criminal actions of her members. St Augustine tells us that without faith one cannot pray. So, as Jesus prayed for St Peter that his faith may not fail, we pray today that the Holy Spirit will grant all survivors of abuse healing, earthly and heavenly justice, and a renewal of their faith in God.
St Thérèse said that in the evening of life she shall appear before the Lord with empty hands; just like the servants in today’s Gospel who fulfil all that God commands and say “We are merely servants, we have done no more than our duty”. This is sanctity.
Our Holy Mother Mary is the greatest saint; the servant, the handmaid of the Lord who believed, had faith in, the angel Gabriel’s words that she would be the Mother of Jesus. She believed that with God nothing is impossible. When assumed into heaven, body and soul face to face with her Son, Lord and Judge were her first words perhaps the words Jesus instructed all his disciples to say? – she was the most faithful disciple after all: “I am merely a servant, a handmaid; I have only done my duty.” Her reward?
To reign for eternity as Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and Earth and all the angels.
So as our Mother may she win us the grace of being secure in the hope of our divine reward (Rule of St Benedict 7:39), with sure faith in the God who surpasses the merits and desires of all who entreat Him; to be greedy for grace and emptied of ourselves, like dry weary lands await to be filled with fullness of God, His heavenly dew, the grace of His Holy Spirit.