There are NO IFs IN FAITH.There are only WHENs.
I have been reflecting upon the fourth Luminous Mystery of the Most Holy Rosary – the Transfiguration.
What an amazing thing to behold… There was God in all His glory standing on the Mount Tabour as beautifully as He had ever stood on this Earth. And there were His disciples around Him – His chosen three. And there they stood watching God in His glory – God the Son transfigured and transformed before their eyes.
How familiar that Beloved Face would have looked to them, and how foreign. How well they knew the creases and dimples of that face – ever hair in His beard, every fleck of His brows. How many hours had they spent watching that Beloved Face, memorising very detail of it, as He radiated LOVED to them. How many days and weeks and months and years had they spent watching the changes of that Beloved Face as they listened to the changing and deepening of His message to them, the deepening of His calling of them…
And then – right there on that mountain – that Beloved Face changed yet again. And this time it was not a little change. This time that Face was infused with a power so immense that the men who witnessed it seemed not to fathom how much infinity could be contained in Flesh…
And in a moment, the change was finished and the Man before them was once more the Familiar Face that they so knew and loved. And so, they went down from that Mountain with hearts so full that they could not even begin to ask what they needed to understand. And when they reached the bottom of that mountain, what happened?
Well, the apostles who had remained behind had failed. There was a father asking for a miracle, and the apostles were unable to perform one. It was beyond them – they to whom God gave His power…
And Saint Mark tells us in the Bible… “A man said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, I brought my son to You, for he has a dumb spirit... I asked Your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.’ And He answered them, ‘O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to Me.’... [The father] said, ‘if You can do anything, have pity on us and help us.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’” (Mark 9:14-29).
And Christ responded to that father, for Christ did not like that comment, “if You can do anything…”
For there are NO IFs IN FAITH. There are only WHENs.
And I have been thinking about that. Because the prayer of that father is my own prayer, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:29).
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.