Ukrainian Catholic ChurchAustralia, New Zealand and Oceania
Homily by Fr. Ruslan Babii on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 16, 2025
The gift of faith is attained through effort, by focusing our lives on God’s providence, which reveals His gifts, sanctifies us, and enables us to work with His power. To do this, first of all, we must trust God and purify the space of our hearts for Him!
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for you (Mt 17:20–21).
Once again, the apostles hear Jesus’ reproach for their inability to perform a miracle! This seems impossible to us as well. Can ordinary people like you and me perform miracles on our own? Most likely, no! Even Jesus was not believed capable by many, as people considered Him an ordinary man. “Who can perform miracles except God alone?” This is what many witnesses to Jesus’ miracles said, and Jesus Himself pointed to this truth when He asked, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say to the paralytic, ‘Get up and walk’?” Indeed, Christ clearly indicated that He is God—God who came to redeem our sins, God who heals and even raises the dead.
Yet even then, there were those who, for their own advantage, were so blinded that they refused to acknowledge this truth, saying, “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.” To this distortion of the truth, Jesus responded firmly: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined!”
Thus, the realisation of a miracle requires God’s presence: His will, His grace (almighty power). It also requires our cooperation—our small faith. The Lord calls for this small faith from the apostles, and He calls for it from us as well. The gift of faith is attained through effort, by focusing our lives on God’s providence, which reveals His gifts, sanctifies us, and enables us to work with His power. To do this, first of all, we must trust God and purify the space of our hearts for Him! Jesus points to fasting and prayer as the means of this purification, for the beginning of a new life in His grace.
All of this is achieved through self-denial and surrendering our own plans for life in order to fulfil God’s plans—which defines our faith. It is not merely knowing about God, but truly living in Him! What does this mean for us, and why must we do it? It means that I, a human being, the highest bodily creation, am called to sonship, not to slavery in sin. I accept Christ’s sacrifice for the redemption of my sins. I understand His infinite, all-forgiving love for me, which opened the Kingdom of God to me. Awareness of this sparks in me new hope and allows me to feel gratitude and joy in anticipation of the final encounter with the Creator.
Therefore, life in God’s grace is the true life of a person who chooses God first through listening to and keeping His Word. “Whoever does this loves Me,” says Christ. All other miracles serve to lead us to faith in the Son of God, so that His love may be born in our hearts, and faith itself becomes the means to attain that love. Thus, we must nurture faith for the sake of the gifts of love that Jesus gives us and desires us to share, so that through sharing His gifts, others may come to know Him and attain salvation.
In summary of today’s Gospel reading, we first hear Jesus’ call to nurture the seeds of faith planted by God in our hearts. Even though they lie deep within us, they still exist, already granted to us. If we do not nurture them, faith cannot grow within us, and God’s grace will not lead us to the “greater works” that Jesus promised to accomplish through us.
