NOTES for Mar 11:11-23

In today's reading from the Gospel of Mark we see how the Lord Jesus unites the three principal components of a person's spiritual life: faith, prayer, and mercy. In response to Peter's observation that the fig tree He cursed has withered, the Lord speaks of faith that can move mountains. Not that we should occupy ourselves with moving mountains from place to place: let them stand where the Almighty placed them. The Lord wants the disciples, and us, to see and remember that faith is the primary power by which we participate in God's creation. Not knowledge and creative intelligence, not the ability to grasp and understand, not will, and not even the ability to distinguish good from evil—although all these are absolutely necessary—but faith itself. For faith alone enables us to live and act not by feeble human strength, but by the power of the Most High.

The Lord clarifies that by faith He means not a firm conviction that God exists, but trust in the Heavenly Father. The apostle says that faith without works is dead. The first and most important work in which our trust in God is expressed is therefore our turning to God in prayer, trusting that we shall receive what we ask. Yet to commune with God we must abide in the truth. This is why the Lord then speaks to the disciples about forgiveness: the gift of faith is realized when we ask Christ to forgive our sins and forgive others ourselves, when we seek the Heavenly Father's mercy and show mercy to our neighbors. In essence, the whole life of the spirit takes place in these three dimensions: trust, prayer, and mercy.