My Dear People,

What is the meaning of the parable when Jesus speaks about faith being the size of a mustard seed? Our Lord’s words were meant to be encouraging. You may have only a tiny amount of faith but step forward with such faith anyway. You do not need a huge amount of faith in order to serve the Lord. He will take what you have and do great things with it. 

The connection may be explained this way. Sometimes those who do great works of faith mistakenly think they are doing God a favor. In regard to the people who cast out demons in Jesus’s name, Jesus said to them, “I never knew you, depart from me.” (Matt 7:23). We do not do God favors by serving him. Paul says, “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains….but do not have love, I am nothing” (compare to Luke 7).

 Great works of faith do not add to God’s glory! Nor does our holiness. Jesus is reminding us that we cannot put God in our debt. And even a holy life is only “normal” for God and what He expects of us. Holiness is normal--sin and evil is what is abnormal. Sin may be typical, but it is still abnormal. Mary was the first normal human being since Adam and Eve. If we live a saintly life, in a sense, it is nothing exceptional. All we’ve done is to be truly human, to fulfill the destiny for which we were created in the first place. 

Once a construction crew that was renovating a Carthusian monastery came across the grave of a monk. Opening the casket, they found him incorrupt. Wondering what to do, they called the nearest Carthusian monastery, which was in another country. 

“What shall we do with the body?” they asked. 

“Bury him again!” came the reply.

“But he is incorrupt!” they protested. “He must be holy!”

“All Carthusians are supposed to be holy,” came the answer. “This is not exceptional. Bury him again.”

This Sunday’s Gospel is calling on us not to pat ourselves on the back every time we turn away from temptation or do an act of mercy. It is normal that Holiness should be ordinary.

To be holy is our duty. This is what God is calling us to do. To God, being holy is normal. God created every human being with the potential of holiness. God wants all human beings to be holy. This is what humans were at the beginning of creation. Humanity was to live in the will of God completely and totally. 

Jesus said He did the will of the Father in everything. This means to live the will of God is normal. With God everything should be normal for us. It is sin that gets in our way, prohibiting us from living in the will of God. 

Eventually the will of God will be established on earth as it is in Heaven. This is what we have been praying for when we’ve recited the Our Father for the past two thousand years. It is God’s plan to return human nature to the order it was originally created. Adam and Eve lived in the will of God until they disobeyed. They were living for a time the way God wants all humanity to live. 

Yours in Christ. 

Fr. Vincent Clemente