Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, C

            Habakkuk 1: 2-3; 2:2-4

            Ps. 95

            II Timothy 1: 6-8, 13-14

            Luke 17: 5-10

The readings connect today on the need for constant faith.  In the First Reading, the prophet Habbakuk invokes the Lord, detailing the horrors that the people of Israel are undergoing because of their foreign conquerors.  God adjures them that He will intervene, but that His time will not necessarily be their time.  The reading ends with the statement, “The just man, because of his faith, shall live.”  Here “faith” refers to the loyalty of the Chosen People to the Torah, despite difficulty and persecution.  The Responsorial Psalm reminds us that our faithfulness must not be like the mistakes of our ancestors, “where your fathers tempted Me; they tested me, though they had seen my works.”  In the Gospel, we see the use of faith meaning both the loyalty described in the First Reading (through the reference to the mustard seed) and the sense of faith as gift, not as reward:  “When you have done all you have been commanded to do, say ‘We are useless servants. We have done no more than our duty.’”

The Second Reading today begins the Second Letter to Timothy.  Here, as in First Timothy last week, the author is speaking to Timothy about his commissioning to ministry, here “the gift God bestowed when my hands were laid on you.”  Preserving the apostolic tradition means handing it on faithfully, and doing so in a way that makes the bishop “strong, loving, and wise,” even when the bishop must “bear [his] share of the hardships which the gospel entails.”

This hymn is based on today’s Scriptures:

How long, O Lord?  I cry for help

And then Your answer firm You give:

“Though I delay, I’ll not be late;

The just ones, through their faith, shall live.”

“Increase our faith,” th’apostles asked,

When Jesus said (to their surprise),

“Though tiny as the mustard seed,

Faith’s power reaches to the skies.”

Stir into flame the gift of God

That makes us loving, wise, and strong;

Guard faith’s deposit by God’s grace

With Spirit’s help our whole lives long!

            LM

            suggested tune:  Erhalt uns, Herr