Saturday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 17:14-20

“… 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.”

Each week the Church gives her attention on Saturday morning and evening to the Blessed Virgin Mary, as a sort of prelude to the Lord’s Day.  After all, if not for her act of faith at the Annunciation, the Lord would not have entered our world and accomplished our salvation as He willed to.

Our Blessed Mother is a model for us:  a model of faith, first and foremost, but a model of being honest with God, expressing our questions and weaknesses.  After all, it’s often our questions and weaknesses that keep both our faith from growing, and from acting upon our faith.

Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel passage to the faith that the Blessed Virgin Mary bore in abundance.  God’s gift to Mary of the Immaculate Conception prepared the way for her thoroughgoing faith, and allowed this faith to grow like the mustard seed through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Ask her intercession today, that you might be as open to God’s plan for your life as she continues to be, even in Heaven.