TIN MỪNG CHO NGƯỜI TRẺ: A MUSTARD SEED FAITH
In today’s Gospel, we learn a little bit about faith.
Have you ever seen a mustard seed? The mustard seed is one of the smallest of all seeds. Some people think of faith when they think of mustard seeds. Do you know why? They use mustard seeds as a symbol of faith because of something Jesus said in the Bible.
When Jesus’ friends asked Him how they could have stronger faith, Jesus said, “If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you!” (Luke 17:5-10)
Wow! Jesus said that God is so powerful that even if our faith is very small, we can still do incredible things with His power.
Or, in other words, Jesus said we only need a tiny bit of faith to do amazing things. If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, He said, you can tell a tree to throw itself into the sea and it will!
But what is faith? Faith is believing. We have faith in our parents and our teachers. That means that we believe what they tell us and we trust them. We have faith in our friends too. Faith in God is a little bit different, though. It is a gift He gives us so that we can believe in Him. Faith in God is when we believe in God and His power.
Jesus didn’t say someone with the faith of the mustard seed can move trees to the sea so that a bunch of people would start uprooting trees. That wasn’t His point. He was teaching us that it doesn’t take a great faith for great things to happen. Why? Because what happens doesn’t depend on us, but instead on God. God has the power to do anything, and God is for us, so we can trust whatever He does.
When we are baptized, God gives us the gift of faith. Then it’s up to us to use it. We use that gift when we decide to believe in God and what He tells us in the Church and the Bible.
God, we ask for a mustard seed sized faith. Help us to believe and never doubt Your mighty power. Amen.