25th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Understanding the Faith Cycle
Mk 9:30-37
I shall share with you a reflection, based on the Gospel text of today, about what I think are the elements of Christian faith.
I would like to understand our Christian faith as a cycle. We can think of at least four major aspects or stages in this cycle of Christian faith: (1) Faith received; (2) Faith personalised; (3) Faith witnessed; and (4) Faith proclaimed.
Faith Received
We are Christians because someone shared with us their faith. Perhaps, most of us were born in a Christian family, and our parents shared their faith with us during our baptism; they brought us up as good Christians. I myself was born in a Christian family, in a village that was 100% Catholic. My people have been Christians for over 500 years. Though, while in school I had friends who were Hindus and Muslims, I am grateful to God that I was born in a Christian family. Thanks to the support of my family, I wanted to become a priest right from the age of reason! And when I was twelve, I joined a Don Bosco seminary school. However, that does not mean, that I understood then what Christian faith meant, or what being a priest implied. In any case, that is how most of us begin our Christian life journey.
Faith Personalised
We remain Christians because we see that Christianity offers us the possibility to quench our inner thirst; it has the possibility to satisfy our spiritual quest. But we really become Christians when we can personalise the faith that we have received.
In the Gospel text of last Sunday (24th Sunday in ordinary time – Mk 8:27-35) Jesus invited us to a personal experience of God in his person: “Who do you say I am?” ‘You have heard so many sermons from other people about me; you know your Catechism very well; you have memorised different prayers; and you participate in the Sunday liturgy quite regularly, but “who do you say I am?”
In my mother tongue we have a saying: “You can only take the cow to the water.” Yes, once you take the cow to the water, it is up to the cow to drink that water. Our parents, our Sunday school teachers, the church, could only take us to the water of life. God can only invite us to his grace. It is up to us to make a personal choice to participate in his grace. It is up to us to make an act of free will like the Magi (Mt 2:1-11) who decided to follow the star; like Zaccheus (Lk 19:1-11) who decided to climb the Sycamore tree; like the apostles and disciples who decided to follow Jesus. In Rev 3:20, the Spirit of God says, “Look, I am standing at the door, knocking. If one of you hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in to share a meal at that person’s side.” Yes, once we have had a personal experience of Jesus in the context of the believing community, then we can say, like the Apostle Paul, “For me to live is Christ” (Phil 1:21). That is…
Faith Witnessed
Our Christian faith is given to us, we receive it. We personalise it through our ongoing experience of God in the person of Jesus, and we live that faith – we witness. The Greek word for ‘witness’ is ‘martyrion’. So, a martyr is not necessarily one who is ready to die for the Christian faith, but it is anyone who lives that faith, even if that implies some inconveniences, some challenges, and some suffering. This is the key message of the Liturgy of the Word, this Sunday. As we live in a very secular context, the first reading of today becomes very powerful (Wis 2:12): “The godless say to themselves, ‘Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life…”
In the Gospel text of today (Mk 9:30-37) these words become true for Jesus himself. Jesus begins to foretell his own impending suffering and death. The apostles are not able to understand what he is talking about. On the other hand, they begin to argue among themselves “which of them was the greatest.” Pained by this contradiction, Jesus challenges them: “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9:35).
Service (‘diakonia’ in Gk) is a way of witnessing to our Christian faith. Service is seen in Christian charity. And so, Jesus continues: “Anyone who welcomes a little child such as this in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me” (Mk 9:37).
Faith Proclaimed
St Paul says, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1Cor 9:16, RSV). Someone said, evangelisation is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. Proclamation is simply being able to share with others how Christian faith has given me hope, and inviting them too to find that same sense of hope. We proclaim our faith so that someone else can receive it, and the cycle of Christian faith can continue.
May we grow in our faith by personalising it and sharing it.