Sunday, October 5 @ 10:00 AM
St. Augustine Cathedral

My dear sisters and brothers,

The Apostles were not shy to ask things of the Lord or even, in fact, demand them. Recall, for example, the poignant moments when the Apostles asked the Lord, teach us how to pray, or in their activity, questioned, why Lord, could we not cast out the demon from that man? At times, what they asked of the Lord was basically self-serving, and so much so that they didn’t have the courage to ask him. So they, as their mother asked, Lord, put my son, one on his left, one on his right, when you into the kingdom. So they were not bashful.

But today, they ask something that puzzles me, that I find strange. They ask, increase our faith. It’s strange because of all the people who ever lived, they had all these tools, resources, and opportunities to have faith that would move mountains. I mean, remember, my friends, they were with the Lord. They could touch Him. They could listen to Him. They ate with Him. They walked with Him. They heard Him teach the gospel and all that He offered. He saw the miracle that with their own eyes, they saw people rise from the dead.

What else would they need to have a faith that would be burning? But they didn’t. So the question is Why?

And perhaps the answer to that question can help us in our own life of faith. But in order to answer it, we have to ask one other question: what is faith?

Faith, my friends, is a twofold gift. On one hand, it’s a gift given to us by God in the moment of our baptism. It’s given to us in our very soul It is the divine grace to be able to intuit and see God’s presence, to accept Him as who He is, and to be able to believe what He teaches us. But that’s half the gift.

The other half of the gift is our willingness to do that. The catechism says we submit our mind and our intellect, but the truth is, we need to to be able to get out of the way so that we can actually believe. And what does that mean? That means if you and I are going to acknowledge God in our life and believe what He teaches us, then we have to begin by acknowledging that you and I are not God, that He has sovereignty over us.

And when you consider that, it causes us to look at our lives in a whole new way and do an examination of conscience. Because there may be something in your life and in mine that prevents my faith to be ever more strong. For the Apostles, it was clear: Jesus was re-arranging their entire life, re-arranging everything they learned since they were little boys. He was forcing them, challenging them, stretching them. He was challenging their mind, their their presumptions, their agenda, their political opinions. He was challenging all of it.

The Apostles, at a certain point inside of them, said, Whoa, wait a minute. This may a bit too much. They recognized that they were not growing in their faith.

So today, I ask you as I ask myself, what is it in your life and mind that is blocking our faith from growing ever stronger. Perhaps it is our stubbornness. Perhaps we think we have all the answers. Perhaps we cling to our opinions about the things we think everyone should believe, not what necessarily the Church teaches us to believe in the name of Jesus. Maybe it’s my pride that I will let God have half the space in my life, but the other half I want for me.

Perhaps it’s a hurt, something you and I have prayed for for a very long time, and we have not gotten a sorrow deep within our hearts, a disappointment that causes us to wonder whether we should surrender everything to God because after all, He didn’t give me what I wanted. I am not certain, my friends, what it is, perhaps in your life, that is that one obstacle that says, submit to God, believe what he teaches. I’ll do it to a point, but not beyond that.

But I’m going to ask you a spiritual homework to think about that question this week. Think about it when you pray, think about it when you have the opportunity to be alone. I mean, sitting in our cars when we’re on 95 going nowhere very fast, we could sit there and use that time to ask that question, What is it, Lord, that I am not surrendering? Remember last week I spoke about complacency? I said we would talk about how to overcome it. This is the first way to get real practical. For if we really wish to become active, totally committed, we have to figure out what the obstacle or obstacles are, and one by one ask the Lord to heal them in our life.

Because the truth is, every single one of us can add our voice to the Apostles. Every single one of us, myself included in this church, can say to the Lord, Please increase my faith. And the Lord is ready to do it for the asking if you and I are willing to give to Him what it is that you and I need to surrender to Him. And my friends, there are a thousand reasons to not ask that question. There’s only one reason why we should, because it is the one thing that we need to face in order to be able to run with joy to eternal life.