Sunday Homily, 5 October 2025 - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

“Increase our faith” is the prayer of those who have judged themselves.  And as soon as we realise that self-judgment is in view, our alarm bells go off: we’re just not capable of making with any accuracy the assessment we’re trying to make.  Those who pray “increase our faith” have judged that their faith is insufficient or defective.

Certainly, the apostles made this prayer to Jesus.  They saw him perform great miracles and heard him say they would do the same.  They heard him teach forgiveness and wondered how anyone but God could do that, to forgive.

For the apostles, it’s all very serious and solemn, this self-judgment about the size and strength of faith.

Well, if we’ve ever wondered whether the Lord displayed a sense of humour during his public ministry, we should consider the evidence of this Gospel reading.  Mulberry trees do not, as a rule, uproot themselves, fly through the air, and replant themselves some place, let alone the ocean!

The Lord is saying to us: lighten up; you have faith; use all the faith you have.  Faith goes with another word which will help us: trust.  Trust in God.  You aren’t almighty and you don’t have to be.  Don’t try to carry the world; it’s too much for you.  So long as you know the One who has all things in his hands, you have all you need.  So long as we take St Paul’s advice in our Second Reading and “rely on the power of God”, there is hope for our faith.

This leads us to consider the set of expectations we make in respect of faith.  We might want our faith to be so great that we never doubt God or disobey him.  We might want our faith to be so intense that it attracts others to it, that we radiate the Gospel message with little more than a sideways glance.  Those things are handy, I suppose, and it makes sense in one way to want them.  But the Lord is saying we don’t need them.

What we need our faith to do is so change our worldview, that we make the right decisions and do good deeds, and so be judged worthy of heaven.  We need our faith to change how we see the world.

We’ll know that our faith is in good working order when we see the world and the course of events in two ways.  There is, of course, the way which comes most easily to us: problems abound, suffering happens, people can be anything from inconvenient to cruel.  But there is another way which we also need to take on, and that’s how God would have us see the world – even how he sees it.

God looks on the world with love.  Everyone we live with is someone who needs such grace in their life that they are saved for a happy eternity.  Well might we wonder whether we have such a view, such faith in humanity, such faith in God’s redeeming love for humanity.

I’m sure that you have that faith, the faith you need, because you’ve come to Mass today.  You’re not those who look at the course of events and wonder why there’s no end to it.  You know that God is sovereign over all things, and that for all the evildoing we observe there is much more grace going about and available.  The faith might be a spark, but it’s not nothing at all: it can be fanned into a flame.

If you know the One in whom we believe, then we have the faith you need.  We’re not to forget that faith isn’t belief: it’s belief in God, the God of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again that we might live with him for ever.

What then can we do?  There’s such trouble in the world.  Can anything be done from Camberwell with any effect on those who need God’s redeeming love and neighbourly peace?  We know, however, that our faith doesn’t even have to be the size of a mustard seed to persevere and to do good.

The Pope has asked us all to say the rosary every day in October for peace: five decades; once round the beads, for peace.  It’s beyond us to fix all the problems of the world, but we with Mary know the one who can.  God is the “rock who saves us”.  Prayer certainly, and Marian prayer especially, will be a good deed those with the spark of faith can do for the world.  We look to her whose faith has been perfected, now that she is in heaven, to join her prayers to ours.

During this month of the rosary, perhaps use the faith you’ve been given to pray for others.  “Lord, increase their faith”, we might say.  “Lord, give them the spark of faith you also gave me, that they too might know you, and see as you see, and love as you love.”

Fr Paul Rowse, OP Parish Priest