Increase our Faith
“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?”
In this week’s Gospel lesson, Jesus evokes the potential power of “mustard seed” faith. We see a different dimension of the seed’s character and potential represented here in the Indian Catholic artist Jyoti Sahi’s “Seed Labyrinth.” Sohi captures depth and complexity, a richness hidden within the seed. It is pregnant with the force of life ready and waiting to uncoil, even as its roots are shallow and its chutes tender.
By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
— 2 Timothy 1:14
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Texts for This Week
Prayer
Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in continual godliness, that through your protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly serve you in good works, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Sorrow’s got a hold on me
Earlier this year, the contemporary Christian folk musician Paul Zach released this song, along with a dozen other “sad church songs,” on his album that bears the same name. He writes, “Many of these songs were written right after one of my weekly EMDR therapy sessions, as I have been working through the sorrow, trauma, and grief of the past few years. I’m learning to bring all of myself to God in prayer and songwriting, which includes my sorrow and anger. I’ve always heard that God shows up in a unique way in times of grief but that has not been my experience. These songs are an invitation for the ‘man of sorrows’ to join me in my grief.”
