Holiness - faith lived at its core!

WORD 2day: Monday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November, 8, 2021: Wisdom 1:1-7; Luke 17: 1-6

Holiness is a matter of the innermost being. It does not consist merely of the external signs and public shows. Words not said, thoughts not expressed, acts merely contemplated, reactions withheld... these determine my holiness more than what the world around perceives me to be. That is why the strange link between faith and forgiveness in the Gospel today. Forgiveness too is an absolutely private truth; its genuinity escapes any external expression!

While Jesus teaches his disciples to forgive brothers and sisters, they respond saying - 'increase our faith!' It can sound strange, but only apparently so! One could say, should the prayer not be, 'Lord help us to forgive!' why do we see, the apostles praying: increase our faith? The connection is very profound, and typically Christ-ian. One cannot consider oneself to be a person of faith, holy and spiritual, if one's relationships with others is not right. If faith is relationship with God, forgiveness is relationship with my fellow beings! If the latter fails, the former is meaningless. If we want really to be spiritual, we have to forgive, accept, and love our brothers and sisters, as God does with us!

Let's ask the Lord to "Increase our faith" (Lk 17:5); increase in faith means what the first reading tells us: honesty, simplicity of heart, shunning deceit, being truthful, in short: being godly at the core of our being, not merely in the external show! Yes, holiness is faith lived at the core of our beings. Faith is our daily life lived in the presence of the Lord. The more we grow conscious of the continuous presence of the Lord the more holy we shall grow!