Today’s Gospel contains what has to be one of the most brutally honest quotes in the New Testament:
“I do believe, help my unbelief.”
Wait, what? You believe … but you need help believing?
Seems a little contradictory, eh? Either we believe or we don’t, right?
Ah, but there can be doubts about faith, no matter who you are and no matter where you are on your spiritual journey.
Doubts are normal … we just don’t like to admit we have them.
When a loved one is facing a huge challenge – perhaps a life-threatening medical issue – we all want to be able to say: “I have complete faith that the Lord will heal.”
But can we say that?
Every Sunday at Mass, we stand together and recite the Creed of our faith, which always begins with “I believe …” But a few hours later, we may be asked if we “really believe” that God can heal a sick person; or that God is truly present in the Eucharist; or that Confession truly wipes away sins.
How do we respond? Better yet, when we respond “of course I believe” … do we truly believe it in our hearts and souls, or are we just saying it aloud for others to hear?
Today’s Gospel story is pretty packed with messages. It’s one of the most interesting stories of Jesus healing a possessed individual – interesting because it has lots of detail, lots of back-and-forth dialogue, some sarcasm (on the part of Jesus!) and a bit of a surprise ending (for the apostles).
Take a few minutes and read it again. Here is the link.
The key part of this story is the dialogue between Jesus and the father of the boy. In this back-and-forth, we come to realize that one must truly have faith in the Lord in order to be healed, or to ask for healing. How many times do we hear Jesus say, “your faith has saved you” in the Gospels?
We also learn to never say “if you can” to Jesus, who can do anything … including tossing that phrase right back at us.
But most importantly is that quote mentioned at the top of this reflection. “I do believe, help my unbelief.”
The father of a sick child … coming to terms that he cannot lie to Jesus.
Yes … he has faith.
But yes … he also is weak, so Lord “Help my unbelief.”
With that, Jesus heals the child.
And therein lies the secret to dealing with all of our doubts. Jesus doesn’t really care that we have doubts. He expects us to have them. After all, we are human.
What Jesus wants is for us to come to Him in prayer and let Him know how we really feel. Let Him know that our faith can sometimes be weak and filled with doubts.
And then pray for more faith.
That might seem an odd thing, praying for faith. After all, don’t we need faith in order to pray? Prayer. Faith. Which comes first?
No doubt in this world, many people of many faiths and beliefs find a way to pray. But it takes a strong person to admit that they are weak and that their faith is not perfect.
Be strong … admit you’re weak. Then pray for more faith.
As a wise priest used to tell us, “You don’t believe everything? That’s OK … you’re not dead yet.”
Just don’t wait too long. You might need that faith one day soon.
