Today’s Gospel from Luke 17:5-10 begins with Jesus teaching the disciples a lesson on faith.  They ask Jesus to “Increase” their faith.  Jesus tells of the power of faith the size of a mustard seed.  He is teaching us that if we simply have faith, true and honest faith in our Lord, we have the power to move mountains.  If we truly believe that Our Lord is capable of doing all things, there is no quantitative value we can put on our faith.  We either have Faith or we do not.  We either believe or we do not.  Even the slightest doubt that enters our minds negates any amount of faith we may have had at that point.  This is an important lesson for us in The Church today.  We profess that we believe in the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus but then we doubt God’s power in other ways.  How can this be?  It simply cannot be.  This is what we must take from this teaching of Jesus.  Faith is either true or it is not.  It is absolute or it is not.

   If we truly believe in the Mystery of our Faith, how could we ever question that Jesus is truly present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist?  Jesus said it Himself in John 6:53-58, “Amen, amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.”  Yet, we have doubts.  Of course it is too much for us to comprehend.  That is why it is a Mystery!  We have had these truths handed down to us from God through the prophets and fulfilled by Jesus Himself.  All we have to do is believe them!  We have all witnessed miracles performed by Our Lord.  It may have been a healing of someone who faced insurmountable odds.  It may have been our own walking away from something unscathed when we know without any doubt that we should not have.  We may try to explain these examples in some way so as to hold on to whatever doubt or “reason” our arrogance leads us to cling to.  However, in doing so, we are closing ourselves off to The Lord and opening the door for the great manipulator (satan) to enter in.  In these times we need Jesus even more.  We must call on Him for strength.  We must ask Him to help us with our unbelief.  We must trust Him.  We must….

Believe!  Amen!