As the Passion approaches, the Lord once again speaks to His disciples about what is most important in His teaching. Following, as Church tradition maintains, the preaching of the apostle Peter, the evangelist Mark gives an extremely concise statement of what the Lord Jesus said about...
As the Passion approaches, the Lord once again speaks to His disciples about what is most important in His teaching. Following, as Church tradition maintains, the preaching of the apostle Peter, the evangelist Mark gives an extremely concise statement of what the Lord Jesus said about the three fundamental dimensions of a person's spiritual life.
First He speaks of faith, assuring the disciples that it is faith which raises a person above the whole created world. In faith a person becomes not merely a grain of sand in an ocean of matter, but acquires the ability to “move mountains,” that is, to participate in the work of building the world which the Almighty Himself performs.
Then the Lord speaks of prayer, because our faith and trust in God are expressed first of all in our seeking communion with Him. As Bishop Cassian Bezobrazov said, faith in the biblical sense is the striving of the believer toward perfect union with the One in Whom he believes. Prayer is the principal path to this union. In speaking of the fruit of prayer, the Synodal translation uses the future tense: “believe that you will receive it, and it will be yours.” The original uses the past tense: “believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” This grammatical detail reflects an important nuance of meaning. The purpose of a believer's prayer lies not so much in receiving what is requested as in placing it under God's authority. Therefore, when we do this, the principal result of prayer has already been achieved. That is why the fundamental form of our requests to the Almighty is: “Your will be done.”
Finally, the Lord tells His disciples that faith and prayer, this vector along which the movement of the human heart is directed toward true life, have a projection in our earthly existence, and this is nothing other than forgiveness. Thus, according to the Gospel of Mark, Christ's instruction to His disciples can be expressed in three words: faith, prayer, and forgiveness.
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