Saturday of Week 18 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
14When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, 15and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has epilepsy and suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. 16And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” 17Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.” 18And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured from that moment. 19Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell 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, and nothing will be impossible for you.”,
Commentary on Matthew 17:14-20
In today’s Gospel, we have the story of a father distraught over the erratic behaviour of his son. As usually is the case, Mark’s telling of this story (Mk 9:14-29) is much more dramatic than Matthew’s. Nevertheless, Matthew keeps the main points.
There is the desperation of the father who feels helpless at the apparent uncontrollable behaviour of his son. The symptoms appear very similar to epilepsy, a condition which is quite well understood today and whose causes—at least in general—are known. But it must have been easy for people in those days to believe that some evil power had suddenly taken hold of an otherwise normal person to make them behave in such bizarre ways.
The man had at first approached the disciples, who were of no help. Jesus expresses dismay and disappointment at the people’s lack of faith, presumably including that of his own disciples, in his criticism:
You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you?
Jesus then drives out the demon plaguing the boy and he was made whole. The disciples, who had done their share of healing on their missionary excursions, wondered why they were not able to heal the boy. Jesus tells them:
Because of your little faith. For truly I tell 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, and nothing will be impossible for you.
How strong is my faith and trust in God’s care of me? Jesus’ words, of course, are not a carte blanche just to ask for anything that comes into our heads. It is not an invitation to manipulate God; on the contrary, it is a call to put all our trust in God knowing that, whatever happens to us, he has our best interests at heart. Such a faith, accompanied by a deep love, is what brings happiness and peace into our lives.
