Christian Art | Faith As A Grain Of Mustard Seed | King James Audio Bible KJV
Luke 17: 1-6 – Week 32 Ordinary Time, Monday (King James Audio Bible KJV, Spoken Word)
1 THEN said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!
2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
3 ¶ Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
To cause scandal is to drive other people away from the path of faith, to cause another person to sin, to withdraw from a life of grace, to cease to believe in redemption in Jesus Christ. This is a terrible sin, and we know that it does not stop there. The evil spreads, and soon it is common practice to denigrate Christianity. We think of the millions upon millions of little ones – and this in ‘Christian countries’ – who have never been introduced to Jesus, and of all the attendant troubles they experience because their spiritual lives have not been fostered. The signs of this spiritual neglect are endemic, while when many people speak against Christianity they do not even know what it is that they are objecting to; they have become in so little time so far removed from what could have been their inheritance, the living faith.
It is not always easy to forgive, especially so abundantly as our Lord commands us. The devil creeps up on us, feeding us angry and vengeful thoughts, perhaps years after the event, and this can be about relatively unimportant things we have somehow fixated on. Most of us, thankfully, can only imagine the extreme suffering others have endured, and the astonishing gift of forgiveness they have been able to bring to the aftermath. We pray for those who continue to find this challenge as yet insurmountable, that they too might be healed.
The apostles recognize the difficulties and also understand how these difficulties can be overcome as they ask for an increase of faith. It is through faith in God, through our giving of ourselves to God, that we transcend our more base inclinations and discover a state of grace, seeing the world, ourselves and others, through the eyes of love rather than hatred. In reply, Jesus speaks of a grain of mustard seed, the faith which is sown by Jesus, and in the person of Jesus, which will flourish and grow through time, in our age ready, should we open our hearts to God, to encompass all of us.
‘I’m not one for miracles. I have told you that in the holy Gospel I can find more than enough to confirm my faith. But I can’t help pitying those Christians – pious people, “apostles” many of them – who smile at the idea of extraordinary ways, of supernatural events. I feel the urge to tell them: Yes, this is still the age of miracles: we too would work them if we had faith!’ St Josemaria Escriva
Concluding Prayer | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
Stay with us, Lord Jesus, as evening falls:
be our companion on our way.
In your mercy inflame our hearts and raise our hope,
so that, in union with our brethren,
we may recognize you in the scriptures,
and in the breaking of Bread.
Who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
King James Audio Bible | Endnotes | Jesus, How Can I Love You More?
Faith As A Grain Of Mustard Seed
Jesus tells his disciples that offenses will come and Jesus warns of the consequences of causing offense. Jesus then instructs his disciples to rebuke and forgive those who trespass against them. The apostles, recognizing the enormity of Jesus’ message, ask Jesus to increase their faith. Jesus responds by saying that faith as small as a mustard seed is enough to move mountains.
The imagery of the mustard seed is significant. The mustard seed was among the smallest seeds known to the people of Jesus’ time, but when it grows, the thought is that it becomes one of the largest of all garden plants. This symbolizes the potential of even the smallest amount of faith to yield great results. It also illustrates the concept of growth in faith – It is suggested that just as the mustard seed grows, so our faith can grow and mature.
Perhaps it adds to the thought that mustard is more a spreading shrub than a tree – in the sense of largeness. And it does spread!
Throughout the Bible, faith is referenced as a critical component of a relationship with God. Hebrews 11:6 states that ‘without faith, it is impossible to please Him [God]’. Faith allows us to trust in God’s promises and to believe in His plan for our lives. It gives us the strength to endure hardships and to persevere through difficult times.
Many Christians have commented on the importance of faith. Saint Augustine wrote: ‘Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.’ Similarly, Protestant Martin Luther emphasized the importance of faith in salvation, saying: ‘Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.’ Protestant John Calvin also stressed the significance of faith, saying: ‘Faith is a knowledge of the divine will toward us, received from his Word, and revealed by the Spirit.’
In contemporary times, Pope Francis has said, ‘Faith is a gift received from God; it is not a product of our own efforts or our own intelligence,’ highlighting the notion that faith is not something that can be achieved through human means alone.
Psalm 59 is attributed to King David. The psalm resonates with themes of seeking protection from enemies, finding refuge in God, and grappling with the challenges of a troubled world. The psalm embodies a deep sense of trust and reliance on the divine, portraying God as the ultimate source of strength, defence, and justice in the face of adversity [ … ]
In Matthew’s Gospel, the truth of Christ’s victory over death is told in an apocalyptic language, laden with symbolic meaning. There is a great earthquake, the angel descends from heaven to roll back the stone of Christ’s tomb, his appearance like lightning, his clothing white as snow. The guards are terrified, becoming like dead men, and the angel announces to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, mother of James, that Christ is risen, that they must go and share the good news with Jesus’ disciples [ … ]
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
