When the apostles felt the heavy weight of following Jesus, they turned to Him with a simple but powerful prayer: “Lord, increase our faith.” This was not a prayer for material blessings, political power, or physical safety—it was a cry from the heart, asking for the strength to keep believing even when life seemed impossible.
Today, we find ourselves echoing the same cry. Our nation have been battered by typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and other calamities. These disasters are part of nature, but what deepens our wounds is the corruption that eats away our hope. Instead of leaders serving the common good, many enrich themselves through anomalous projects, neglect of duty, and lack of accountability. For the poor and ordinary families who lose everything after each storm, it is not only nature that hurts them but also the betrayal of those entrusted to protect and serve.
And so we cry: “Lord, increase our faith.”
Faith does not magically erase our problems. It does not remove the floodwaters, stop the earthquakes, or dismantle corruption overnight. What faith does is give us the strength to carry our burdens to the foot of the Cross. It allows us to walk forward with courage, knowing that Jesus Himself carried the world’s suffering on His shoulders.
To have faith is to believe that no matter how heavy the baggage we carry, there is Someone who walks with us, Someone who will never abandon us, Someone who can turn our misery into grace.
Jesus reassures us: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”
A mustard seed is tiny, almost invisible. Yet, when nurtured, it becomes a strong plant that shelters birds and produces fruit. Our faith does not need to be grand or perfect. What matters is that it is alive. Even if we struggle, doubt, or falter, a small but sincere faith is powerful enough to move the mountains of despair and unbelief away from our path.
This is the faith we need today: not spectacular faith, but persevering faith. Faith that keeps on praying even when answers seem delayed. Faith that continues to rebuild homes and lives after each typhoon. Faith that chooses honesty over corruption, generosity over greed, hope over despair.
At the end of the Gospel, Jesus calls us “unprofitable servants.” At first glance, this sounds harsh. But what He means is that we do not serve for reward or recognition. Everything we do is because of grace. Without God, we are nothing. With God, even our smallest acts of kindness become seeds of eternal life.
To be an “unprofitable servant” is to bloom where we are planted. It is to live with gratitude, to help a neighbor in need, to continue announcing the Good News not only with our lips but with our lives. We may feel small, forgotten, or powerless in the face of corruption and calamities, but if we live faithfully each day, we become witnesses of hope.
My dear brothers and sisters, imagine what happens when each of us, with even just a mustard-seed faith, chooses to live courageously and humbly. One small seed may seem weak, but when planted together, they become a great field, a forest of faith that no storm can uproot.
When we stand side by side, refusing to be crushed by corruption, choosing to rebuild after calamities, and continuing to serve with honesty, we show that God is truly alive in us. We may be “unprofitable servants,” but together, we are the Body of Christ, a living sign that hope cannot be drowned by floods nor buried under rubble.
So let our prayer be the same as the apostles’: “Lord, increase our faith.”
Increase our faith so we may carry our burdens with courage. Increase our faith so that even the smallest seed of belief may grow into strength. Increase our faith so that as humble servants, we may bloom where we are planted and make a difference in our small corner of the world.
Even in misery, even in corruption, even in calamities—we are not abandoned. With even just a mustard-seed faith, we can rise again, rebuild, and keep on believing that God is with us in every journey, in every storm, and in every act of humble service.