Monday, 14th Week in Ordinary Time
The gospels give ample witness to the power of faith. In the case of the woman afflicted with hemorrhages for a long time – of which today’s gospel reading talks about – Jesus identifies the real source of her healing – he says: “Your faith has saved you.”
Just as we cannot physically live without breathing oxygen, we cannot spiritually live without exercising faith. With faith, we breathe in the oxygen of God’s grace. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. For, indeed, it is faith that propels us to live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.
Let me paraphrase what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is saying about the necessity of faith… Without faith, you and I will never be what we were created and designed to be, and we will never be able to live as we have been called to live. Without faith, you can never be the kind of parent, spouse, child, and sibling you are meant to be. Without faith, you can never become the best Catholic Christian or parishioner… the best friend or companion or partner… the best student or learner or follower… the best doctor or lawyer or teacher or worker… the best servant-leader or mission-partner God intended you to become. Without faith, you cannot be the best person God created you to be. Without faith, we will be living in fear and we will be defeated by anxieties.
First, faith will not always get for us what we want, but it will get what God wants us to have. (Vance Havner) True faith disposes our hearts to receive or to accept what God wants for us. Let me put it in a more emphatic way: Faith disposes our hearts to be docile to God’s will – believing that God’s will is the best for us. It is said that as our faith increases, our prayers decrease – that is, the words of our prayers become less and less, to the point that they boil down to this prayer: “Lord, your will be done. Amen.”
Parokya ni Osong 