Hab 1:2-3, 2:2-4
Ps 95: 1-2, 6-7, 8-9
2 Tim 1:6-8, 13-14
Lk 17:5-10
The first verses of Habakkuk are startling.
“How long O Lord?
I cry for help
but you do not listen!
I cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not intervene.”
“I cry for help
and you do not listen.”
Habakkuk is one of the minor prophets; minor not because his message is insignificant but because the Book of Habakkuk is so short that it was combined with eleven other short prophetic books so as to be able to fill one scroll.
Habakkuk is unique among the prophets because he openly questions God’s wisdom, he asks the question WHY? One can only wonder how many parents in Minneapolis whose children were attacked by a crazed gunman or those who found a reliable guide in Charlie Kirk before his assassination are asking that question.
The major thrust of Habakkuk is moving, or trying to move, from perplexity, confusion and doubt toward faith and reliance on God. Only at the end of chapter three, the book's final chapter does the prophet express his ultimate faith in God in what is sometimes called the Psalm of Habakkuk .
In this prayer that is part of the Liturgy of the Hours, we hear the prophet reflecting on the potential--and real-- loss of everything he has only to end on a note of optimism.
“For though the fig tree blossom not
nor fruit be on the vines,
though the yield of the olive fail
and the terraces produce no nourishment, . . .
Yet will I rejoice in the Lord
and exult in my saving God.
God, my Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet swift as those of hinds
and enables me to go upon the heights.”
Only at the end of a book that opened with a hostile challenge do we learn of the faith that redeems and sustains through everything, faith that is being sorely tested in this country today.
Faith is freely given to us. Faith sustains us through the ups and down of life. It augments the joys and tempers the sorrows. Faith brings us eternal life. But we must tend it and nurture it. Much of Jesus’ teaching turns on the question of faith,
how it is nurtured and how it is maintained. Thus, Gospel begins with the famous parable of the mustard seed.
Think back to the popular necklace from days of yore, those days being the 50s and 60s. The necklace held a pendant that was a small clear globe with a tiny yellow mustard seed suspended in the middle. It seemed that half the Protestant girls in my high school wore them while the other half wore crosses. The Catholic girls, of course, wore crucifixes or miraculous medals. Because the mustard seed is only one or two millimeters in size, about 1/25th of an inch, one had to look very closely to see it suspended in the clear globe.
The tiny mustard seed grows into a large bush that, while technically not a tree, is large enough for birds to perch in as if it were a tree. Just as it takes the mustard seed takes a long time to grow from 1/25th of an inch into a large bush,
so it is with faith.
As we live our faith from youth to old age, as we cultivate and attend to it through prayer, reflection, meditation on scripture, and frequent reception of the Body and Blood of Our Lord in the Eucharist, it matures, becomes stronger, and more resilient. It becomes more able to sustain us in good times and guide us through bad times. Faith permits us, indeed it sometimes compels us, to ask the question that opens the Book of Habakkuk: How long O Lord? How long?
Faith allows us to pray with one single screamed word: “WHY?” in times of grief and loss. And, it allows us to endure the startling silence that may be the reply. It also allows us to sing the great Psalms of praise.
Ideally, despite the losses, traumas, and unavoidable crises of life, faith will change the angry question: How long O Lord? How long? to the affirmation:
“God my Lord is my strength,
He enables me to go upon the heights.”
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The photos below are from Horseneck Beach, a beach in MA near the RI border. Several years ago I was going there periodically to do some supply Masses on weekends. These were taken in late September or so. I am not a beach person in the summer but give me an autumn, winter, or early spring beach and I am quite content.
Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
