The Universal Church celebrates Sunday, October 02, 2022, as the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C. In the entrance antiphon we pray: “Within your will, O Lord, all things are established and there is none that can resist your will. For you have made all things, the heaven and the earth, and all that is held within the circle of heaven; you are the Lord of all. Amen."
In the first reading, the prophet Habakkuk screams at God and challenges him to tell him why his people have been suffering for so long while their oppressors go largely unharmed. Even though he admits that his people have sinned, he wonders if God is going to punish them through the actions of people who are even worse sinners than God’s people. God tells him that it is not the power of darkness that gets the ultimate victory but the final outcome will be the triumph of justice. God’s ways are not ours.
In the second reading, Saint Paul tells his assistant Timothy to boldly proclaim Christ. The Holy Spirit has given him the mandate to preach the Gospel and so he should do so without fear because the same Spirit will give him the courage he needs for his mission. He should imitate him [Paul] who, even though he is in chains, continues to preach Christ, in season and out of season, notwithstanding the hardships that go with it.
In Saint Luke’s Gospel, Christ is still on his way to Jerusalem where his passion and death await him. He continues to prepare his disciples for their mission after he is no longer with them. The apostles, conscious of their weak faith, make this wonderful prayer: ‘Lord, increase our faith!’ A prayer we should all make ours today because, just as Jesus, on a number of occasions, calls his disciples men of little faith, he also calls us ‘men and women of little faith’. Do we too, like his disciples, not tend to worry too much about the future, about what is going to happen to us? If only we had faith as small as the mustard seed, we would not worry about little things. And who can give us such faith except Christ Jesus our Lord?
So let us pray in the course of this Eucharist for the grace to follow Jesus ever more closely and love him ever more dearly since he alone can increase our faith in the only living God. Amen.
First Reading: Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongs and look upon trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end – it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.”
Comment
Habakkuk is one of the twelve Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. The others are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. They are referred to as ‘minor’ not because their works are less important than those of the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel) but because their works are generally much shorter than those of the Major Prophets. For example, Habakkuk is only three chapters long while Isaiah, for example, is sixty six chapters long.
Six hundred years before Christ, the prophet Habakkuk screamed at God and asked him for how long he was going to ignore the cries of his battered people. The reason for his anguish is the occupation of his land by the Babylonian armies that had conquered and ransacked the city of Jerusalem in 597 BC, taking many of its leading citizens into exile. The prophet is alarmed that God is silent when the innocent suffer in the hands of their tormentors. It is the same cry we hear in Job and in Psalm 74 where the Psalmist is wondering how long God’s people shall continue to suffer while the enemy profanes the Lord’s temple.
The passage of our meditation is the prophet’s loud complaint to God about the apparent triumph of evil over good. He laments the mistreatment of the chosen people by the invaders who behave in a scandalous manner, profaning the land God himself had given to their ancestors.
The Lord gives the prophet an answer, which is a call to patience and hope. In spite of all appearances the final outcome will be the triumph of good over evil, of justice over injustice. Even in silence, God continues to direct the history of humanity and he will, in spite of human sin, unfailingly bring it to the destiny he has determined for it. Even though his judgment often seems delayed, it is bound to come. His justice will fall on the politically and religiously powerful who oppress the poor and the weak and shamelessly enrich themselves in the process. The good people in God’s world must hold fast to their faith in him. It is this faith that receives the reward of life.
What is the relevance of this message to me as a Christian living in the city of Douala today? Habakkuk’s message to the oppressed and suffering people of his day is still relevant to us living in Cameroon today. The rich are growing richer by the day while the poor are growing poorer and poorer. It does seem as if evil has indeed triumphed over good and the same question Habakkuk asked God is still the same question we ask him today: why does injustice seem to triumph over justice in our land? Why all this rampant embezzlement of funds by a select few to the detriment of the majority, who continue to wallow knee-deep in misery?
The same answer God gave to Habakkuk is still the same he gives to us today; namely, that even when it seems that evil has indeed triumphed over good, as if God does not exist, we should remember that God will always triumph in the end. We must therefore cling in faith to our God of justice and know that he does not forget us. Living by faith means that we realize that God calls us to live as his children in every moment of the day. We must be patient and place all our hope in him. We must keep Habakkuk’s prophetic message alive by showing concern for the poor and the weak in our society and by working for peace, reconciliation and social justice in our land.
Let us therefore pray for those who are victims of oppression and social injustice in our society, especially in the northwest and southwest regions of our land. Let us also pray for the perpetrators of social evil, those who wantonly take away human lives, those who kidnap and torture the innocent for a ransom, that God may touch their hearts and bring them to change for the good of all. We make our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Second Reading: 2 Timothy 1: 6-8. 13-14.
Beloved: I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control. Do not be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but take your share of the suffering for the Gospel in the power of God. Follow the pattern of the sound words which you heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.
Comment
Saint Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy is similar in style and teaching to the other two ‘pastoral’ letters, that is, his First Letter to Timothy and his Letter to Titus. It however differs in tone as Saint Paul is portrayed as writing this letter from prison in Rome during the final years of his life. It would seem many of his friends had deserted him and he was facing the certainty of death, which came around 62 or 63 AD.
As in the other two pastoral letters, Saint Paul is concerned with how ministers of the church conduct themselves and what doctrine they teach. Through Timothy, he is addressing all the ministers in the church, warning them against false doctrine and any conduct that might bring shame to the church.
In the passage of our meditation, he exhorts Timothy to remain firm in his vocation, to preach without any fear or favour. ‘God’s gift was not a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power, and love, and self-control,’ (1:7) he tells him. This passage gives the most explicit text in the New Testament about the receiving of holy orders. Paul laid his hands on Timothy to communicate his mission to him, the mission Paul himself received directly from Christ.
He therefore urges Timothy to preach without fear because the Holy Spirit, received when Paul laid his hands on him, has given him the mandate to preach the Gospel. Timothy should therefore trust the same Spirit to enable him to preach in season and out of season, with no fear whatsoever. He should imitate him [Paul] who, though in chains for the sake of the Gospel, continues to preach boldly and fearlessly even if it means death. He encourages Timothy not only to be the guardian of the faith he has received but also a minister of boldness. Paul knew his companion for over seventeen years and knew that he was rather timid and reserved by nature and so he tells him that God’s gift of the ministry is not a spirit of timidity but rather the Spirit of God’s power and love. He must therefore bear all the hardships that come with fidelity to the Gospel.
Paul continues to loudly denounce in this second letter, as he does in the first, the activities of some self-styled preachers who claimed to have received special revelations from the Spirit, and had been given special gifts and powers. We have many of such self-styled prophets all over Cameroon today, especially in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé.
Many so-called messengers of God, prophets, miracle-workers, spirit-inspired visionaries, and exorcist priests are roaming all over our country, promising sure salvation and instant riches to their followers.
Let us pray for the Spirit of discernment that will enable us to sort out false prophets from true preachers of the Word, even if such preachers do not necessarily share our faith and beliefs. In a spirit of ecumenism, we should show love and respect for Christians of other denominations and their true and authentic leaders. Amen.
Gospel acclamation: “Alleluia, alleluia! Speak, Lord, your servant is listening: you have the message of eternal life.”
Gospel: Luke 17:5-10.
At that time, the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you. “Will any of you, who has a servant ploughing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and put on your apron and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterwards you shall eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Comment
The three readings of this day’s Mass have something in common. They show us a God who strengthens our faith and makes of us courageous missionaries of his word. Even when we scream at him, as the prophet Habakkuk does in the first reading, he is never nervous but rather he continues to reassure us that justice will triumph in the end. It is the same message Saint Paul passes on to Timothy when he encourages his young companion to preach God’s word with boldness because God does not give us a spirit of timidity, but rather one of power and love.
In the Gospel, Jesus’ apostles ask him to increase their faith so that they too can face the future without him with boldness. They are aware of the immensity of the mission ahead of them and they are not sure they will have the courage to carry it out to the end. They need their master’s reassurance that they can do it. Jesus replies by telling them that the power of faith, be it as small as a mustard seed, can do wonders. Faith overcomes fear and enables us to go beyond our own abilities because our faith is embedded in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Fear tends to overwhelm and discourage us; and we are invaded by all kinds of fear these days: the fear of failure in life, the fear of war, the fear of being kidnapped for a ransom, or the fear of being killed by suicide bombers, among others. All these fears arise from our lack of faith in the power of our God to protect us. Faith reassures us of Christ’s protecting presence. Faith generates courage and engenders a sense of values.
A number of times Jesus calls his apostles men of little faith. When they are sailing in a boat, even with him onboard, they are still scared of a violent storm (Mt 8: 26). They are worried about their future as they wonder what will happen to them when their master is no longer with them. Like them, we too tend to lack faith in the face of difficulties and let fear overcome us. We sometimes fear without knowing exactly what it is we are afraid of, especially when we do not turn to God to relieve us of our fears. Turning to God reinforces our faith.
Fear can cause great harm to our lives because it brings despair; it gives us a sense of hopelessness. That is how Jesus’ apostles too are feeling as they listen to him tell them that his enemies are about to capture, torture and kill him. No doubt Peter intervenes strongly to say that such a thing would never happen to him. For daring to contradict our Lord, Peter receives a strong rebuke: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are not thinking as God does, but as human beings do” (Mt 16: 23). Poor Peter! He, like the rest of Christ’s disciples, is simply overwhelmed by the fear of losing their master.
They know that on their own, they will not be able to do what Christ is asking them to do after he is no longer around. They are scared and ask for his assistance. They ask him to increase their faith; an increased faith, they believe, will eliminate the fear they have as they contemplate the enormity of the mission ahead of them.
But for our faith to be active, it must be accompanied by works of charity; otherwise it is a dead faith (Jas 2:17). The Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI puts it even more explicitly: “Faith without charity bears no fruit, while charity without faith would be a sentiment constantly at the mercy of doubt. Faith and charity each requires the other, in such a way that each allows the other to set out along its respective path” (Porta Fidei, 14). Let us therefore join the apostles in asking Jesus, “Lord, increase our faith”. Amen.
Comments