“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you”…..Pray and Fast….And sit back and watch what happens

Today at Holy Mass we are told that in the Gospel of St Luke that when Jesus spoke he spoke with authority….Its important to keep in mind that Jesus was in the eyes of the world a “nobody”, born poor in a remote village…Yet, when this “peasant” spoke, people recognized the authority he had and the power of his words…That should tell us something...Because this is tangible evidence of the reality of the Holy Spirit…..”Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee. He taught them on the sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority”……..In each of us there is a spirit of rebellion…While we can perceive legitimate authority, just as the people of Jesus’ time recognized it, there is something in us that rebels against it….That something is our fallen nature, the effects from original sin and we all have it…..Even after we as Catholics are Baptized…We still have this tendency, to rebel…….This is why we need God’s grace…..Human beings were given free will, which comes directly from God…That means we have to choose God and to choose God means we submit to his authority - A sticking point for so many….When we come to the point when we trust God more then we trust ourself….When we know with certainty that God loves us and is working to sanctify us through the events of life, both good and bad each and every day…We learn to “let go” and in doing so we inch closer to this crucial point in our faith journey - Jesus tells us point blank that his “yolk is easy”…..Believe him

“I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD”

The greatest adventure one can have in life is to submit your will to God and follow him wherever he leads….The world does not believe this sadly, but this is reality….God has something for each of us to do and we can not do it if we hold on to tightly to own plans, which many times lead to dead ends….If we only have the courage to place our life in the hands of God………When Mother Teresa left home at the age of 18 to become a nun, her mother told her something I often think about…”Put your hand into the hands of God and never turn back”…Great advice coming from a place of great trust…Such trust is earned over time…It starts small but builds and builds……Years ago, I had a friend named Jim who was blind…Jim went blind as an adult and his life was not easy…He lost his wife and due to his blindness, his life was clearly limited…But Jim never gave up…He worked as a bagger at a supermarket for years despite his physical handicap….I knew Jim through Church and I would pick him up every Saturday morning for a bible study…Jim trusted me to lead him…He would put his hand on my shoulder with total trust that I would lead him to where we had to go…I bring this up because the way Jim trusted me, is how I must learn to trust God…Almost as if I was blind….Putting my hand on his shoulder, letting him lead me where he wants me to go…...Not the other way around…Over the years of my friendship with Jim, he taught me many things….How never to quit…To overcome seemly impossible odds….And to trust implicitly……We are not convinced that God can do more with our life then we can…How we as Catholics can give “lip service” to this idea of trusting in the Lord…And how we “hold on to our plans” - Only to sell ourselves short in the process….We must learn to “let go”….And when we do - Grace will build upon grace as time moves forward …Like my friend Jim who was blind…Jim trusted….We must learn this kind of trust, as if we were completely blind…And when we do, God will do amazing things through us….Yes - You heard that right - Amazing! - The lives of the saints show us this possible….The saints trusted God with reckless abandon…..St Francis, St Dominic, St Ignatius Loyola…..My friend Jim who was blind who worked as a bagger at a super market showed me this too

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The LORD is my life's refuge; of whom should I be afraid?

Today in the Gospel, St Luke tells us that the people of Jesus’ time recognized the authority in his words….There is something about the Truth….All people are wired for it….When it is spoken, it registers deep within the human heart…….What keep us from embracing what we know to be true?……Do we lack trust?….If we do and lets be honest, we all lack trust to varying degrees…And because of that, we must pray…..There is power in prayer and if we want to “sharpen our prayer”, then we must fast as well…..If we do this…little by little…our trust in God will grow……Do you remember what was told to us by Christ himself?…..“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you”….P