August 8
Saint
Dominic, PriestGospel: Matthew 17:14-20
Today's Gospel: Matthew 17:14-20
(Jesus Cures a Boy with a Demon)
When they came to the crowd, a man came to him,
knelt before him, and 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.
And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Jesus
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.” And
Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured from
that moment. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we
not cast it out?” He 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.”
Reflection:
The disciples had already cast out demons before.
Jesus had given them that authority Himself. And yet here, in front of a
suffering child, they failed. Something in them had gone soft, and Jesus identifies
the issue: unbelief.
Saint Dominic understood exactly what rebuilds a faith that's gone soft.
Tradition holds that Our Lady herself appeared to him and placed the Rosary in
his hands as the weapon to use against the heresies eating away at people's
faith in his time, heresies that, like unbelief in that Gospel scene, hollowed
people out from the inside while they still looked religious on the outside.
The Dominicans have carried the Rosary as their signature weapon for eight
centuries because it works: it rebuilds mustard-seed faith one bead at a time,
one mystery at a time, patiently, the way nothing else quite does.
You don't fix unbelief with willpower. You fix it the way Dominic did, by
putting something small and repeatable into your hands and doing it faithfully
until the mountain starts to move. Fifty-nine beads is a strange thing to call
a weapon, until you've watched what it does to a soul that's gone cold. Pray
The Rosary every single day, and it will change your life.
What mountain in your life have you stopped believing could move? Has
praying every single day become a burden? Why?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely
shared.
