The power of faith in seemingly impossible situations
The Christian life is as arduous as uprooting a mulberry tree – made possible by supernatural faith.
The Christian life is as arduous as uprooting a mulberry tree – made possible by supernatural faith.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr Coleridge tells us…
How the Apostles’ plea reveals the soul’s need for faith to meet Christ’s demands
That faith, even if small, has divine power to uproot obstacles and fulfil duty more deeply rooted than a mulberry tree
Why true faith must be joined to humility, lest it become a cause of pride
He shows us that the greater our faith, the more we must serve without claim or complaint.
For more context on the events discussed in this mini-series, see Part 0.
Various Teachings and Counsels
The Preaching of the Cross, Vol. III
Chapter I
St Luke xvii. 1–19
Story of the Gospels, § 117, 118
Burns and Oates, London, 1888
Headings and some line breaks added.
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Apostles’ prayer for faith
‘And the Apostles said to the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If you had faith like to a grain of mustard-seed, you might say to this mulberry-tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea, and it would obey you.
‘But which of you having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle, will say to him, when he is come from the field, Immediately go, sit down to meat, and will not rather say to him, Make ready my supper, and gird thyself, and serve me, whilst I eat and drink, and afterwards thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant for doing the things which he commanded him? I think not.
‘So you also, when you shall have done all these things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which we ought to do.’
As has been said, the occasion on which the Apostles asked our Lord to increase their faith, may have been entirely disconnected from that on which the words which precede, about the frequency of forgiveness, were uttered by Him. Nor can we be certain that the words of our Lord about the confession of unprofitableness which He recommends were connected with the words about faith and the transplanting of the mulberry-tree.
Growth of faith
As to the first words in the passage before us, there must have been constant occasion for the Apostles to feel how much their faith required an increase, to enable them to take in properly all the wonderful things which they saw and heard, or to prepare them for the trials and persecutions to which they were certainly to be exposed.
Faith in the soul, and especially in the soul of a servant or minister of God and the Gospel, must indeed be like a grain of mustard-seed, small at first, but spreading in growth and influence until it affects and controls the whole being and mind and heart. It must give a light and colour of its own to all that we do or say, to our views of all the persons and things among which we move.
Thus anything that happened to our Lord, or that He did, or any word that fell from His lips as to the Kingdom of God, may have been the occasion of this prayer. We can only see that in the context to which this passage of St. Luke belongs, the thoughtful wonder of St. John or St. Peter may have found many points which may have moved them to the prayer, even if it was not made with immediate reference to that particular teaching of our Lord of which we have just been speaking.
Reason for the petition
If we are to find the explanation of this petition for an increase of faith in the immediate context, it cannot be difficult to do so. The subjects of which our Lord had been speaking were the danger of scandal, the duty of fraternal correction, and also of repeated forgiveness of our brethren. Our Lord had said, after the words about scandalizing one of these little ones, ‘Take heed to yourselves.’
Whether this instruction belongs to the passage which precedes it, or to the passage which follows after it, its opportuneness cannot be denied. It was no light matter to attempt never to be the occasion of scandal. Our Lord had said, that it was impossible scandals should not come. Not, we know, that it was impossible to avoid giving scandal deliberately, but that human malice was so great, and the intercourse of society so full of perilous occasions, that practically and morally speaking scandal was inevitable, notwithstanding the very grievous punishment which it would incur at the hands of God.
Delicta quis intelligit? Ab occultis meis munda me Domine, et ab alienis parce servo tuo, was the exclamation of holy David. Few things could be a greater defence against the danger of giving scandal than such an increase of power in the spiritual vision which is the result of an increase of faith. And if there was perpetual and most insidious danger of scandal, so also the duties of which our Lord had spoken, that of fraternal and charitable correction of others, and that of incessant unwearied forgiveness of the offences of others, were duties which could not be discharged without a very great augmentation of grace.
This grace might bring a very large increase in the accuracy and keenness of spiritual vision, and this involves an increase of faith. These three things, we may well suppose, to have been set before the disciples by our Lord as subjects of prayer and effort, and the first thing they might ask for after such an instruction was naturally an increase of faith.
Our Lord’s answer
Our Lord approved of the petition of the Apostles, by speaking of the immense power which an increase of faith would bring to their souls.
‘And the Lord said, If you had faith like a grain of mustard-seed, you might say to this mulberry-tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea, and it would obey you.’
He uses the image with which we are so familiar from one of His parables. The image contains two points.
The grain of mustard-seed is very small, and thus it may represent anything that is little in bulk or amount, and it has the power of growth to a wonderful extent, and thus it may be used for anything that has this quality of increase and fertile development. It is not likely that our Lord would use the image simply in the first sense, though He might mean to imply that the Apostles were comparatively very much wanting in faith, that their faith was as yet so small as hardly to be worth comparing to a grain of mustard-seed. He is more likely to have meant that what they were lacking in was just this activity, this power of growth in their faith, that their faith needed development, exercise, intensity, the power that a seed possesses of feeding itself on everything that touches it, and, by that means, of swelling itself to large proportions, and making all things around it minister to its nourishment and vigour.
And He adds that such a faith would swell in them to such a degree of power that they might confidently attempt to work miracles by it, as indeed the working of miracles may seem perfectly natural where there is this great faith, in so far as such an exercise of power is consistent with the arrangements of the Providence by which the world is governed.
For faith rests on the power of God, to which it is as easy to cast a tree or a mountain into the sea as it is to cause an apple to fall by the law of gravitation. And it may seem as strange to the angels that Christians do not work more miracles, as it may have seemed wonderful to the Apostles that when our Lord visited, for the last time, the home of His youth at Nazareth, He was only able to work a few miracles, because of the unbelief of the people of that once favoured city.
But in the case of our Lord the power was undoubtedly there, though He refrained from using it on account of the rule which He had set Himself, of not working miracles ordinarily except on the condition of the existence of faith in those for whom they were worked, or those at whose prayer they were worked. In the other case, there is deficiency of faith in those who might have the power, when it was convenient in the ordinance of Providence that it should be exercised, but who cannot exercise it because they have it not.
Images used by Our Lord
The other part of the imagery used by our Lord, when He says that if the Apostles had faith like a grain of mustard-seed they might work miracles, is not used by Him elsewhere, and may probably have been suggested to Him by the circumstance that a mulberry-tree was there before His eyes, as on another occasion He speaks of ‘this mountain.’
For it does not appear to be suggested by anything similar in those matters which may have been in the minds of the Apostles when they made their prayer for an increase of faith. These we may suppose to have been the spiritual difficulties of the high virtues proposed to them as matters of daily practice by the teaching to which they had been listening concerning the avoidance of scandal, or the constant forgiveness of injuries.
If our Lord had wished to signify that a true and energetic faith would enable them to overcome the greatest spiritual difficulties in carrying out His precepts, it would be in accordance with His usual familiar and plain manner of speaking, taking His images from things before His eyes at the moment, to represent the effects of the spiritual strength of which He was speaking, under some such figure as that actually used, and this may be the simplest way of understanding the language. He would then mean that if the precepts which He had been delivering seemed to them very arduous, they were like, so far, to the task of rooting up the mulberry-tree before their eyes, and bidding it be transplanted into the sea.
The self-love and blindness as to the true interests of their souls which might prevent them from walking so carefully in the presence of God as never to be in danger of causing scandal, or of finding it impossible to forgive over and over again the same person, would be in their soul like a tree deeply rooted, and with flourishing branches, which stood in the way of a man who wished to build a house on the spot where it was growing, or make a road or a path in the line in which it stood.
And the faith of which He spoke would be powerful in the one case as in the other, would enable them to undertake as an easy task what seemed at first sight so impossible, and would secure them the execution of their design in the spiritual order as well as in the material order.
And then He goes on, as if proceeding with the same subject, or entering on one at least kindred to the former, to give another instruction concerning the true manner of understanding their position as the servants of God.
Various Teachings and Counsels
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So the greater a challenge God gives us, the more we persevere in carrying out His Will, this will cause our Faith to grow inside of us. That takes a lot of determination.......St Augustine said that it would be impossible not to have enemies in this life. Forgiveness and not Scandalizing (Calumny) is something that distinguishes more righteous persons. This can be a Cross. Blessings!