20250809 FAITH AS A LOVING AND TRUSTING RESPONSE TO THE PRIOR LOVE OF GOD FOR US
09 August 2025, Saturday, 18th Week in Ordinary Time
First reading |
Deuteronomy 6:4-13 |
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart
Moses said to the people:
‘Listen, Israel: the Lord our God is the one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Let these words I urge on you today be written on your heart. You shall repeat them to your children and say them over to them whether at rest in your house or walking abroad, at your lying down or at your rising; you shall fasten them on your hand as a sign and on your forehead as a circlet; you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
‘When the Lord has brought you into the land which he swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that he would give you, with great and prosperous cities not of your building, houses full of good things not furnished by you, wells you did not dig, vineyards and olives you did not plant, when you have eaten these and had your fill, then take care you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You must fear the Lord your God, you must serve him, by his name you must swear.’
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 17(18):2-4,47,51 |
I love you, Lord, my strength.
I love you, Lord, my strength,
my rock, my fortress, my saviour.
I love you, Lord, my strength.
My God is the rock where I take refuge;
my shield, my mighty help, my stronghold.
The Lord is worthy of all praise,
when I call I am saved from my foes.
I love you, Lord, my strength.
Long life to the Lord, my rock!
Praised be the God who saves me,
He has given great victories to his king
and shown his love for his anointed.
I love you, Lord, my strength.
Gospel Acclamation | cf.Ep1:17,18 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
enlighten the eyes of our mind,
so that we can see what hope his call holds for us.
Alleluia!
Or: | cf.2Tim1:10 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Our Saviour Jesus Christ abolished death
and he has proclaimed life through the Good News.
Alleluia!
Gospel |
Matthew 17:14-20 |
If your faith were the size of a mustard seed, the mountain would move
A man came up to Jesus and went down on his knees before him. ‘Lord,’ he said ‘take pity on my son: he is a lunatic and in a wretched state; he is always falling into the fire or into the water. I took him to your disciples and they were unable to cure him.’ ‘Faithless and perverse generation!’ Jesus said in reply ‘How much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.’ And when Jesus rebuked it the devil came out of the boy who was cured from that moment.
Then the disciples came privately to Jesus. ‘Why were we unable to cast it out?’ they asked. He answered, ‘Because you have little faith. I tell you solemnly, if your faith were the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it would move; nothing would be impossible for you.’
FAITH AS A LOVING AND TRUSTING RESPONSE TO THE PRIOR LOVE OF GOD FOR US
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [DT 6:4-13; MT 17:14-20]
Today we touch on a very crucial issue in our lives: the question of faith. Without faith, there is no Christianity. Without faith, we become ineffective and powerless ministers of Christ. This was precisely what happened to the disciples – they could not cure the lunatic because they lacked the proper faith to bring about such healing. Consequently, it is important that we consider the real nature of the faith required of us so that we can live beyond ourselves.
What then is faith? The most basic level of faith is what I term as human faith. This faith is an act of the will – affirming faith in oneself. It is a form of auto-suggestion or positive thinking. For example, if I want to pass my driving test, I must believe that I can drive; if I want to be a great preacher, I imagine myself as one. This kind of faith is not entirely useless – it certainly helps to build self-confidence and self-esteem. However, such faith in oneself is still deficient because we have to keep on conditioning ourselves. At times, we can even deceive ourselves and convince ourselves to be what we are not. This is true in various forms of hypnosis, where people act out their fantasies.
Then there is another kind of faith – slightly higher than the first – which is the faith most of us have. This is an act of the will to trust in God, especially in His power and providence. Unlike the first kind, it is not trust in oneself but in God. However, it is similar in that the act of faith is made on the initiative of man. This kind of faith is often a form of blind faith – a leap in the dark. Such faith requires super-human courage, and perhaps even a touch of naivety. So when we are asked to pray for others, we do so with as much faith as we can muster in God’s power and providence. But for most of us, there is a lingering doubt in the back of our minds that God might not hear our prayers. We wrestle inwardly, questioning whether God will hear us. With such a divided mind, we inevitably communicate our lack of confidence to those for whom we are praying. As a result, our prayers lack effectiveness and power, for neither we nor those we intercede for are truly assured of God’s love and mercy. This, precisely, was how the disciples prayed for the lunatic – resulting in no healing.
So we can see that the first two levels of faith are deficient. What, then, is the kind of faith that Jesus is asking of us? It is a faith in the power and love of God, but in response to God who has already loved us in the past, and continues to love us still. In other words, unlike the former kind of faith, it is not simply a blind trust in God’s love, nor the use our will to make that act of faith. Rather, it is a faith that springs from the prior love of God in our lives. Indeed, this is the kind of faith we see in the Israelites in today’s first reading.
Now, when Moses told the people, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength”, he was not asking them to do the impossible. For the command to love God with one’s whole being is rooted in the love which God had already shown them. This call to love God was founded on the fact that He had demonstrated His unconditional love and mercy for them by leading them out of slavery in Egypt, through the desert, and into the Promised Land where milk and honey flowed. So, if they came to profess their trust in God, it was because He had already manifested His love and providence throughout their history. Hence, their faith was not blind. It was still faith, but it is a faith grounded in reasonable trust – a trust forged through God’s initiative in loving and protecting them from all their enemies. On this basis, Moses could tell the people that, since God had revealed Himself as such, it was only right that they served Him alone.
The implication for us, therefore, is that unless we have experienced God’s prior love for us, we cannot have a faith that is well founded on our personal experience and conviction. It will only be an intellectual faith, or a blind faith – not something that we can personally testify to. Such deficient faith inevitably leads us to pray without confidence, uncertain of how God will respond. However, if we have experienced God’s love and security before, then we can pray in faith that God will hear us today, since He has already heard us before. Our faith. Therefore. is rooted in God’s past actions in our lives. For this reason, our faith is neither blind nor simply an act of the will, but really a response to a loving God in our lives. This is the only kind of faith that will move mountains and all obstacles in our lives.
Indeed, when Jesus reprimanded His disciples by saying “How much longer must I be with you?” He was challenging the disciples to see that God was manifesting His love through Him. Jesus was asking the disciples to open their eyes to see God’s love, mercy and power present in His whole being, words and deeds. Unless they opened their eyes to God’s love in Him, they would not be able to experience God’s love and therefore lack trust in God’s willingness to hear their prayers. But when they finally did – after the death and resurrection of Jesus, particularly in the case of St Peter and St Paul – they became people of deep faith. Such faith empowered them to become effective ministers of Christ, winning people over to the faith and nurturing their love for God and trust in Him.
Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections
- Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
- Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
- It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.
Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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