Daily Reflection – 11/09/2026
Sacred Scripture
And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, `I repent,’ you must forgive him.” The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, `Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Luke 17: 1-6)
Reflection
There is something wonderfully honest about the apostles’ response to Jesus in this Gospel. Jesus tells them about temptation, responsibility, repentance, and the seemingly impossible demand to forgive someone even when that person hurts them again and again. And the apostles do not pretend that this will be easy.
They simply say, “Increase our faith!”
Perhaps they understood something we sometimes forget: forgiveness requires faith.
It takes faith to believe that releasing resentment will not make us weaker. It takes faith to surrender the hurt we have carried for years. It takes faith to believe that God can heal something inside us that another person has broken. And sometimes it takes enormous faith simply to believe that tomorrow does not have to be imprisoned by what happened yesterday.
Jesus answers them with the image of a mustard seed.
He does not tell them that they need heroic faith. He does not demand spiritual perfection. He tells them that faith, even when it seems impossibly small, contains extraordinary possibilities when it is placed in God’s hands.
That matters because there are days when our faith does feel small.
There are days when prayer feels difficult, when disappointment weighs heavily upon us, when the wounds caused by another person are still tender. We may look within ourselves searching for some great reservoir of faith and discover that there is barely a seed left.
And Jesus says: Bring Me the seed.
Bring Me the little faith you still have.
Bring Me the part of your heart that still wants to believe even while another part is struggling. Bring Me your anger, your disappointment, your fear, and even your inability to forgive completely. God does not need us to pretend that the wound never happened. He asks us to trust Him enough to begin loosening our grip upon it.
Perhaps that is where the miracle begins.
Forgiveness does not always happen in one dramatic moment. Sometimes forgiveness is deciding today that we will not allow another person’s wrongdoing to determine the condition of our heart. Tomorrow, we may have to make that decision again. And perhaps the next day too.
That may be why Jesus speaks about forgiving seven times in a single day. Love sometimes requires us to begin again.
And every new beginning is an act of faith.
The mustard seed reminds us that God can work with something very small. A whispered prayer. A reluctant act of forgiveness. One moment when we choose mercy instead of resentment. One decision to trust God when everything inside us wants certainty first.
We may look at that tiny beginning and think it could never be enough.
Jesus looks at it and sees what it can become.
So perhaps our prayer today does not need to be, “Lord, give me enormous faith.”
Perhaps it is simply:
Lord, take the little faith I have. Help me forgive. Help me trust. Help me begin again.
And then let God grow the seed.
Prayer of The Day
“Lord Jesus, you give us victory over the destructive forces of sin and harmful desires that keep us from doing your will. Give me the strength to always choose what is good and to reject what is wrong. May your love and truth rule my heart that I may give good example to others and guide those who need your wise instruction and help.”
Daily Note
As we ask the Lord for an increase in faith, we are asking him for the light that comes from faith so that we may examine our consciences appropriately, see our spiritual blind spots and look at our behavior from God’s perspective, and come, even seven times a day, to say, “Lord, have mercy on me!”
