Daily Gospel Reflection – Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

Daily Gospel Reflection – Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

Daily Gospel Reflection – Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord August 07, 2021 

Saturday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time 

Gospel: Mt 17:14-20 

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, “Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured. Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” 

Source: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 

Bishop Robert Barron 

Friends, today in our Gospel, we meet a boy driven mad by a demon whom the disciples could not heal. They asked Jesus why they had failed, and he said, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” 

In all circumstances, you have to pray with faith. Have you noticed how Jesus, time and again, says to people before working a miracle, “Do you believe I can do this?” Once, Matthew tells us, Jesus was unable to perform many miracles because he met with so little faith among the people.

Lots of people today, especially in the healing ministry, seem able to reproduce what Jesus did, precisely because of the purity of their faith. Is part of our problem simply a lack of faith? Perhaps. We allow our skepticism to get the better of us. We’re just a little embarrassed by asking God for things, or we’re convinced that he is a distant power only vaguely connected to our lives. But God is far greater than that.