Faith, where is it when you need it? Or maybe, we do not use faith enough and have forgotten where we left it lay. It seems when the title waves of life crash ashore, I look for anything to cling onto and I often find faith when I realize just how powerless I am in the midst of a fierce storm. Where do you find your faith? Saint Bede: “Blessed St. Jude advises us to build ourselves up on the foundation of our holy faith, so to join ourselves as living stones to the house of God which is the Church.” [Jude 20.] [Commentary on Jude, 251.]
A Belorussian Monk once said: “You Americans, you talk about miracles like you don’t believe in God!” We seem to want an instant way out of the trap we are caught in without daily practicing fasting and prayer without daily seeking God! Saint Bede the Venerable writes: “In the love of God we need to have true faith and the purity of good actions, for without faith it is impossible to please God, and faith without works is dead [Jas. 2:26].”
Faith springs from our soul if we are in a healthy relationship with God. The first commandment is first and foremost “I am the Lord thy God…. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Pray, fast, worship, commune and seek God, putting God first in all things. Faith comes from that steady communication with our Creator and God and energizes our faith through prayer and obedience. All of our paths in life, seeing, thinking, believing, choosing and our actions, are distorted when we break that chain of communication. James 2:24:”Ye see then that by works a man is justified and not by faith only”. Blessed Theophylact defines that scripture as: “When he says, ‘by works,’ he does not mean by the law, such as circumcision and such things, but works of virtue, righteousness, and the like.” [P.G. 125:335A (col. 1161).]
Our warmth and love toward God become clearer and stronger as we pray and worship together. Our faith becomes a living faith, a spiritual force that breaks through the normal disciplines of religious life when we act as a servant in His name, for His glory. With God providing the guidance and power for us, His creation, the possibilities are immense as long as we continue to be prayerful and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit which feed and nourish our dry thirsting mustard seed. God gives us living faith, miracle faith, “mountain moving” faith! The kind of faith that provides us with clarity to see the mountain in us that needs to be moved. The mountain preventing us from surrendering all that we are for all that He is!
We just need a mustard seed of faith and with our practice and His grace we can overcome death. Listen to the words of our Savior: “Because of your unbelief. For verily I say to you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard, ye shall say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you.” [Mt. 17:20] And even human life begins with a tiny seed, even much smaller than the size of a mustard seed and do you see the enormous possibilities that tiny seed creates. Do you see what gigantic possibilities you have with the tiny seed He planted in you? Our Lord and Savior began His life’s ministry as a tiny seed and look and see what He did with His opportunity, and His death gave abundant life and spread more seeds of God’s love and salvation to all the world. (John 12:24)
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia expressed his conviction earlier this week that believers shouldn’t cease to be Orthodox when they go to work and when they return to their families. And especially when they find themselves in conflict situations that test their loyalty to the Lord. He says if believers stay Orthodox in these situations their lives will change for the better.
“And this is possible only if we live a genuine religious life. If we, having got a feel for the ascent to Mount Tabor during the service and step down into this world, continue to bear in our minds and hearts the memory of these wonderful moments of presence in the church, communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ and contact with the grace of God, then our faith will be actualized, and become living and effective. And we will gain the ability to solve our life problems – both large and small— family, social, state, all that is important for a person. If we solve these problems on the basis of our Christian calling, relying on our faith, strengthened by the power of the grace of God, then our world will change. We ourselves will change, and by our faith, we will undoubtedly have the hope of realizing a genuine and real meeting with the Lord and the Savior in that transfigured world, which everyone will enter at the end of their earthly life.” (Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia in the sermon for the holiday of the Transfiguration of the Savior on August 19, 2019)
