Faith like the size of a mustard seed

Faith like the size of a mustard seed
Good evening/morning every one, I am so happy to welcome you all for today's Holy Mass. Our special welcome to all our parishioners, visitors and every one here today. Let's thank God almighty for bringing us all here to this beautiful church of........ Let's thank Him for sending His only Son our Lord Christ Jesus to be with us for ever and let's thank Him for showering upon us His countless blessings each and every day.
Now let's take a moment to prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ calling to mind our sins, short-comings, weakness, failure, pain and suffering asking divine assistence and Christ our Lord's forgiveness, mercy and compassion.
Once after knee operation, the doctor comes to the patient and says, "I have a good news and a bad news for you". The patient says, "What is the bad news?" I am sorry that I operated on the wrong knee. Then the good news? Your bad-knee is getting better.
Once a gallary owner looks at one of his painters and says, "By the way, I have a good news and a bad news for you". The good news is that a man came and asked whether the price of your pictures would go up after you die and I said, "Yes'. He bought every one of your pictures. The bad news is he is your family doctor.
Faith the size of a mustard seed:
With in sixe monthes, after joining the seminary, a priest near by parish passed away. The seminary sent us to do vigil prayers.  I was assigned from 12.00am to 1.00am grave yard shift. sitting closer to the dead body alone was not an easy thing. That was the longest one hour in my life. After the funeral, our vocational diractor called me and said, "How did the vigil prayer go?' I said, "Not easy sitting alone with the dead body".  Then he looked at me and said,, "Who asked you to be with dead body. You supposed to be praying in the chappel with another parishioner".
Why I am saying i,s that day as I was sitting alone, I was looking at a beautiful mural image of Christ under which was written...faith the size of a mustard seed. Those words 'Mustard seed faith' helped me to calm down for an hour with a dead body.
Mustard seed faith
What is faith?  According to St. Paul "Faith is the assurance of things hope for and conviction of things not seen" Simply faith is believing. By faith, man completly submits his intellectual and his will to God. With his whole being, man gives his assent to God
Little faith will bring our soul to God and great faith will bring God to our soul. Reading through the Bible from the beginning, we come to know one thing namely God's great love and compassion towards us. His love is unchageable and everlasting. There is no greater motivation for faith than knowing that God is absolutly for us. He wants us to be happy. He wants us to enjoy life to the fullest and He wants us to succeed in everything.
1. In today's Gospel, the apostles of Christ ask Him to increase their faith. They want their faith being supersized. They saw their Master performing miracles and wonders, saw His amazing teaching and preaching. They witnessed their master changing water into wine and walking on water and transfiguring aften. They witnessed something new and holy. Something pure and spiritual. They wanted to be like their Master and thus they came to Christ saying, "Jesus, Master...increase our faith".
2. Once a teacher looked at his students and said, "I will give you hundred dollars if you tell me where God is". Then one of the students stood up and said, "I will give you hundred dollars if you tell me where God is not". That is called faith. That is called assurance of things hope for and conviction of things not seen.
Jesus said to His apostles, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains and say to the mulberry tree, be uprooted and be planted in the see and it will obey you".
3. Why Mustard seed? The mustard seed Jesus talking about is in extincition. He used Mustard seed because it was not only the smallest of many seeds and also it was not used in many rituals and religious purposes. It was considered as garbage plant or weed. That is our God. He makes the ordinary into extraordinary and small into important and unique. Yes, everything is special and unique in the sight of God.
The potentiality of a mustard seed is so unique. It could easily sprout from any type of soil. It can be thrown away or being rejected, it will still come out strong and vibrant.
4. That is kind of faith we need today. A little rejection or a criticism should not stop us from going to church or practicing our faith. Like a mustard seed, we should sprout and grow wherever we are sown. Then our faith will move mountains and trees; suffering and pain. we will be live in peace.
5. As we have faith in God, there will also be doubts and if we begin to live in doubts, then it will lead us into spiritual blindness. When the Church talks about faith, she also helps us to understand incredulity(denying the revealed truth), heresay(post-baptismal denial), Apostacy( total denial of the Christian faith...becoming hindu or Muslim) and schism(refused to listen to the pope).
One night a house caught fire and a boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, "Jump! I will catch you".  But the boy could not see anything, only smoke, fire and darkness. The boy screamed saying, "I can't not see you". The dad screamed back saying, "But I can see you and that is all it matters".
Faith in God can move mountains. Yes faith can move mountains but our doubts can create them. All that matters is God can see. Faith is like wi-fi. It is invisible but it has the power to connect you to what you need. Amen.