"Faith" in Strong's
As in the Gospels, a person's believing (belief) is vital (cf. Heb 11:6). But a personal encounter with Christ (a true connection with Him and His Word) is always necessary for believing ("man's responsibility") to be transformed into faith (which is always and only God's word). See also Mt 8:10,13, 9:22,28,29, 15:28; Ac 20:21; Ro 9:32; Gal 3:9,22.
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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 10 2025
The night of the passover was known beforehand to our fathers,
that, with sure knowledge of the oaths in which they put their faith,
they might have courage.
Your people awaited the salvation of the just
and the destruction of their foes.
For when you punished our adversaries,
in this you glorified us whom you had summoned.
For in secret the holy children of the good were offering sacrifice
and putting into effect with one accord the divine institution.
Responsorial Psalm
From Psalm 33
R. (12b) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Exult, you just, in the LORD;
praise from the upright is fitting.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield.
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
who have put our hope in you.
Brothers and sisters:
Faith is the realization of what is hoped for
and evidence of things not seen.
Because of it the ancients were well attested.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place
that he was to receive as an inheritance;
he went out, not knowing where he was to go.
By faith he sojourned in the promised land as in a foreign country,
dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the same promise;
for he was looking forward to the city with foundations,
whose architect and maker is God.
By faith he received power to generate,
even though he was past the normal age
—and Sarah herself was sterile—
for he thought that the one who had made the promise was
trustworthy.
So it was that there came forth from one man,
himself as good as dead,
descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky
and as countless as the sands on the seashore.
All these died in faith.
They did not receive what had been promised
but saw it and greeted it from afar
and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth,
for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland.
If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come,
they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one.
Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God,
for he has prepared a city for them.
By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac,
and he who had received the promises was ready to offer his only son,
of whom it was said,
“Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.”
He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead,
and he received Isaac back as a symbol.
Gospel Luke 12:32-48
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock,
for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.
Sell your belongings and give alms.
Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out,
an inexhaustible treasure in heaven
that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.
“Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.
And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants.
Be sure of this:
if the master of the house had known the hour
when the thief was coming,
he would not have let his house be broken into.
You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect,
the Son of Man will come.”
Then Peter said,
“Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?”
And the Lord replied,
“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward
whom the master will put in charge of his servants
to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so.
Truly, I say to you, the master will put the servant
in charge of all his property.
But if that servant says to himself,
‘My master is delayed in coming,’
and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants,
to eat and drink and get drunk,
then that servant’s master will come
on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour
and will punish the servant severely
and assign him a place with the unfaithful.
That servant who knew his master’s will
but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will
shall be beaten severely;
and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will
but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating
shall be beaten only lightly.
Much will be required of the person entrusted with much,
and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”
Today's readings are all about faith.
I think perhaps not everyone has a clear idea of what it is to believe. The second reading has a pithy description: Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.
Expanding that a little we could say we have faith when we have a grip on things beyond our reach, things we can only hope for; having faith is being convinced about things we can't understand or can't see any sense in.
"Faith" can have a wide range of meanings, from the body of teachings (doctrines) that a religion requires its members to believe through to having faith in a person. For us having faith usually refers to having trust in God.
If you are not comfortable speaking of "trust in God" we could simply say "trust in Life". Then the question, "Does God care about us?" becomes: "Is Life meant to be a satisfying experience that we're privileged to be part of or is it just bad luck to be born - bad luck that we find ourselves caught up in a system that betrays us at every turn and in the end leaves us with nothing?"
*****
This morning I asked my friend, a thoughtful person and generous to a fault, "Can I ask you a question? I'm trying to write something about 'faith'. When you hear that word, what comes to mind first?" She thought for a while and then said: "Belief? What you believe in. And then, of course, [i]religion[/i]." I couldn't help noticing some discomfort at the mention of religion so I assured her I wanted to leave it out of this because religion is really only the organisation of people in the terms of some 'Faith'.
"Then...," she added pensively, "you believe [i]in someone[/i] - you trust them."
"That's it, isn't it!" I said. "Faith is about trusting someone or something. It involves a step beyond what is obvious or proven into an unknown, which we take on someone's promise."
*****
Thinking about trust leads us quickly to looking into "hope". In trusting someone we risk ourselves, and we manage that risk by hoping that it will work out okay. Hope goes beyond the evidence. It involves confidence that we are not making a mistake; this confidence is based both on our own experience and/or on someone's promise.
With trust in God the starting point must always be kept in mind: that everything goes back to God's initiative. God has chosen to open a dialogue with us, offering life in return for love, a love that acknowledges the rights of the Creator and commits itself to the plan that governs the whole Cosmos.
*****
"Do not be afraid, little flock." For the thrill of your life throw yourself into the arms of your loving Father!
*****
Faith-Hope involves a leap into the darkness of the future. We have an expectation, either bolstered by a promise or simply innate in our consciousness, that our leap will land us somewhere good. It is not strictly a logical thing to do, yet we do it all the time. Ask the inveterate gambler!
So what do we hope for, when we put our trust in Jeshua, or in God, or in Life?
It seems the most common thing people hope for is that life goes on after death - "eternal" life. It is basic that we don't want to die. There is evidence that in virtually every time and place down through history people have expected their life to go on forever, one way or another.
The idea that at death the light goes out and that's the end of us has become common in our day. In terms of human history this is a novel idea - a novelty of the last few centuries, and already there are signs it will soon go out of fashion even in the West. So, is hope for an afterlife something we are born with? Is it an innate expectation, an instinctive reflex that comes with intelligence, or is it a primitive deception, one of nature's nastier tricks?
The expectation of life beyond death takes a great variety of forms, from reincarnation (re-cycling or given a second go) to immersion in the source of life. It goes without saying that this latter is beyond our present comprehension. And it does seem to be short on logic - to hope for something that we don't understand because it is beyond us. Yet people do.
The Christian's hope for life beyond this short experience is not only well-founded in experience. It is bolstered by the promises Jeshua made, and it is confirmed by his showing himself to his disciples in that new dimension of life beyond death. The promised everlasting life.
*****
The whole of Jewish and Christian spirituality rests on promises made to Abraham and his descendants. These promises were made by God in a long series of "revelations" over centuries. Great figures down through the ages - Abram, Moses, many prophets ("teachers", often chosen in spite of their reluctance), the apostles of Jeshua and myriad followers of his Way - have felt they had to respond to the promises. Our primary response is to trust.
It is quite surprising that the motivation to make that leap in the dark is the promise of rewards in "another world", a world which will open out to us beyond our dying. “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom," and "store up for yourselves an inexhaustible treasure in heaven."
In our fear of death we look for comfort. In our horror at the idea of a blank and empty ending we need to find value in the rough times T. No matter what happens in the present, there is something worth living for. Without the expectation of life continuing beyond the present, the journey we're on is lacking something; for some it becomes meaningless, empty.
[b][i]I have come that they might have life and have it to the fullest*.[/i][/b]
* Gk perissos = beyond abundant; more than abundantly.