GROWING FAITH TO MATURITY


SATURDAY, EIGHTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME   

Deut 6:4-13; Ps 18:2-4,47,51; Mt 17:14-20

Faith working through Love

We have the great Shema of the people of Israel. It is a prayer they must regularly recite to instill the fear and love of Yahweh within themselves. It is a declaration they must make in faith, which also feeds their faith and causes it to grow, until it matures in love. “Listen, Israel: the Lord our God is the one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Let these words I urge on you today be written on your heart.” The musing of the mouth ordinarily follows that of the mind, and what the mind is meditating on, the heart will gradually come to love. Since what the heart loves is the good that the mind understands and sets before it, our mind must constantly meditate on the greatest good for man, God. The constancy is because of the nature of our awareness, which is like a flowing river. If we are to dwell on a particular subject constantly, then we must find a way to feed our minds with it continually. Hence, Moses instructs them as follows, “You shall repeat them to your children and say them over to them whether at rest in your house or walking abroad, at your lying down or at your rising; you shall fasten them on your hand as a sign and on your forehead as a circlet; you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

The instructions God gave to the Israelites and us, through Moses, are in keeping with our way of absorbing a reality into our lives. It is not enough to hear the word of God, which is spirit and life; we must receive it in faith. God always gives the gift of faith with which we receive his word. The gift of faith requires our cooperation for it to grow and mature. We must seek to understand the word we have heard by giving it ample time, musing on it in our minds. The meditations of our minds find an outlet through our mouths and are reinforced by our confessions. Other engagements of the day would ordinarily take our interest and our minds off the word of God and therefore remove us from his presence. Writing the word on the doorposts and wearing it on our hands and forehead would bring us back into his presence. The constant, regular, and steady positioning of our eternal and ultimate Good before our hearts will gradually ignite us with the flame of God’s love. The love of God is the Spirit of the word we have received. When faith is alive and active in us, we hear the word of God through the whole creation, and not only through the sacramental signs of what we are wearing on our hands, foreheads, or written on the doorposts. The whole of creation is a sacrament of God to the faithful. “My God is the rock where I take refuge; my shield, my mighty help, my stronghold.”

Faith matures as the blossoming of love in us. Because this love is the end of God’s revelation of himself through his word, the commandment is about love. The force of the word of God, spoken through the prophets and creation, to bring about the desired love in us can never be compared to the force of the incarnation of the Eternal Word. Thus, the scripture informs us that God has been speaking to us in bits and pieces through the prophets, but now speaks to us clearly through his Son, Jesus Christ. To love God is now simplified to loving the Son of Man with all our hearts, all our minds, with all our strength. God has made it easy for us to love him by sending us his Son, Jesus Christ, who showed us love unto death. So, we not only have the commandment, we have the example of the Son of Man hanging on the cross, and the Holy Spirit poured out. Therefore, we meditate constantly on the mysteries of our Lord during our Rosary prayer and carry our rosary beads and crucifix. These are all reminders of these mysteries of God’s love for us. Praying the Rosary often works faith and love of God into us. Because we do not meditate on these mysteries, Jesus calls us a faithless and perverse generation. “Faithless and perverse generation! How much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you?” Let us put our little faith into practice by meditating on the mysteries of our Lord and reciting the Rosary.

Let us pray: Draw near to your servants, O Lord, and answer their prayers with unceasing kindness, that, for those who glory in you as their Creator and guide, you may restore what you have created and keep safe what you have restored. 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.      

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