Matthew 17:14-20

Deuteronomy 6:4-13

Psalm 18:2-3a, 3bc-4, 47 and 51

Matthew 17:14-20

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said,

“Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely;

often he falls into fire, and often into water.

I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

Jesus said in reply,

“O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?

How long will I endure you?

Bring the boy here to me.”

Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him,

and from that hour the boy was cured.

Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said,

“Why could we not drive it out?”

He said to them, “Because of your little faith.

Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed,

you will say to this mountain,

‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.

Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Opening Prayer: Lord God, I firmly believe that you are one God in three divine Persons,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe that your divine Son became man and died for our sins and that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches because you have revealed them, who are eternal truth and wisdom, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. In this faith, I intend to live and die.

Encountering the Word of God

1. Your Little Faith: As Jesus descends the Mount of the Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John, they encounter a man who brought his son to Jesus’ disciples to be cured and freed from demonic possession. The disciples were unable to cure the boy because of their “little faith.” If only they had faith the size of a mustard seed! This is the second time Matthew’s Gospel mentions a mustard seed. The first time was in the Parable of the Mustard Seed. If we read the two stories together, we realize that Jesus is the one who sows the mustard seed. Faith is not a human achievement. It is a gift given by God, sown in our hearts by the Son, and nourished by the water of the Spirit. The virtue of faith begins very small within us but can grow to enormous proportions. We can collaborate with God’s grace and grow in God’s grace, but we always need to recognize it fundamentally as a gift.

2. Israel’s Confession of Faith: In the First Reading, we read Israel’s great confession of faith, known as the “Shema Yisrael,” the first words in the confession translated as “Hear, O Israel.” It is like the creed that many Christians profess at Mass on Sundays. It is a short but powerful summary of Israel’s faith. It recognizes that God is one and that the Lord (YHWH) alone is God. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength. “For Jesus and his contemporaries, the Shema was a touchstone of identity for religious Jews. According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, observant Jews recited the prayer twice daily, when they woke up and when they went to bed, reading it from a text they bore with them at all times. To hold the text of the Shema, Jews wore tefillin, or phylacteries: small containers usually made of leather (see Mt. 23:5). It was customary also to inscribe the first words of the Shema on the doorposts at home and on the gates of Jewish towns and cities” (Hahn, The Creed, 17). 

3. New Testament Confessions: When Jesus was asked about the most important Law of Moses, he chose the Shema as the first. The Shema functioned as a confession of faith and reminded the People of Israel – twice daily – of the true doctrine of God revealed to them through Moses. “In its longer form, the Shema also reminded them of the covenant with Israel and its blessings and curses” (Hahn, The Creed, 23). The Old Testament confession is a foreshadowing of the powerful faith of the New Covenant. Peter has just made a powerful New Testament confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16). “The confessions of the New Testament maintain the Old Covenant’s insistent monotheism. Yet they also assert the Christian difference: that God’s Son, Jesus is also divine – he is the Lord – and that there is one Spirit” (Hahn, The Creed, 31). Our faith cannot be reduced to an intellectual assent. It needs to be fiducial and characterized by hope in God’s promises and trust in his grace. As well, it needs to be informed by charity and manifest itself in good works of justice, charity, and mercy. As St. Paul teaches, our faith needs to work through love (Galatians 5:6). 

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, I believe in you. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. You have redeemed me from the slavery of sin and the threat of eternal death. I thank you and I praise you today. I love you and offer my life to you to present to the Father.

Living the Word of God: How am I called to renew my faith in God today? Is my faith informed by charity and manifesting itself in the worship of God and in works of charity?