MIRACLES: FAITH AND WORKS

The Apostles ask Our Lord to “increase our faith!”

     His reply is “if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you”.  Before asking ourselves what Our Lord means by this answer, we need to find out what the Apostles mean by their question.

     At first it may seem that they are asking for faith in God, i.e. belief in Him. But it is not so much belief in God that they want as trust in Him to help them to work miracles, as Our Lord’s words to them show us. It seems from Our Lord’s reply that the Apostles are eager to work miracles.

      If we cast our minds back to the beginning of chapter 10 in St. Luke’s Gospel, there were seventy-two disciples sent by Our Lord to preach in His name, who came back rejoicing that they had not only preached in His name, but, had worked many miracles in His name. On that occasion Our Lord had warned them not to glory in miracles, but rather to rejoice that their “names were written in the Book of Life”.    

                                                                                          ~ Fr. Paul Dobson