In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Tuesday 1 September 2020

Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

Word for today 
The Gospel of Matthew 17:14-20

The mustard seed

Faith is not  believing in something or someone, it is not offering your mental and spiritual commitment to a credo, an ideology, or a divinity. Faith is not a generic believing in God, as opposed to a generic not believing in God. Faith is knowing how to use an energy that has endless potentialities, an energy that comes from a relationship of utter trust and intimacy with God. Faith is knowledge in its wholeness; it is being thuroughly aware, without any doubt or suspect, that the energy that comes from trusting God makes even the impossible possible. Faith is cosmic, universal energy which can transform matter and every existing reality. According to Jesus, with just a pinch of faith - of this energy - you will be able to move a mountain. Jesus says: "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," but this affirmation was interpreted as a paradoxical statement, exaggerated on purpose, only symbolic, and not as Jesus actually proposed - one of the highest truths and procedures capable of completely directing an individual's life towards well-being and happiness. According to Jesus' affirmation, faith is the most powerful divine energy that can flow in anyone's hands or heart, making that person capable of realizing every desire and aspiration, without limits. But what are the conditions that allow this energy to flow so powerfully in a person as to make the impossible possible? The necessary condition for that energy and the divine power of faith to flow so that, as Jesus says, Nothing will be impossible for you, is never ever fighting or competing with God, consciously or unconsciously. Only the heart and the spirit of someone who never thinks ill of God can use the shocking power of faith. Thinking ill of God, even if in a subtle or subconscious way, means thinking that in some way He is the cause of our suffering, pain, sadness or misery. Thinking ill of God means  considering him somehow involved in the evil that grips the world and that can enter into our life. Thinking ill of God means losing our purity of heart, and it is the surest, most certain and perfect way to switch off the cosmic energy of faith and, in so doing, the possibility of realizing our dreams and wishes. When someone thinks ill of God that person can no longer use the powerful, divine power of faith by which nothing is impossible, and losing that power makes that person  trade the power of faith for faith in power. The person who has made his/her heart impure by thinking ill of God will be unable to use the power of faith to dominate his/her life according to his/her wishes; instead that person will be pushed to use his/her faith in domination to cope with life's events. The person who thinks ill of God will lose the power of faith and will necessarily become subject to faith in power, and in so doing will erase all well-being, peace, happiness, health, harmony from his/her life.