Walking or moving in the Opposite Spirit is a teaching from Saint Ignatius of Loyola, [Agere contra, Latin “to act against"]. This spiritual practice involves purposefully acting in the opposite direction of your natural inclinations to produce a positive spiritual resolve and result.
So, the first thing to move in the opposite spirit to have powerful mustard seed faith that has the power to uproot and transplant mulberry trees to the sea, is to eat some mustard seeds!
Some cultures do chew on mustard seeds because of their proven antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, however, eating too many raw mustard seeds can cause digestive upset and if you put enough mustard seeds into a soup, you won't taste anything else!
To explain how small faith can do so much, the Catechism in no. 57 might help answer that by saying that “Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very Word of God who cannot lie.”
So, the first step to “mulberry tree transplant-power” compact faith is to imagine that you are small and insignificant, like a mustard seed. Everyone else is bigger, more important. Saint John Chrysostom said that the disciples were like mustard seeds, weakest of all, and least of all; but nevertheless, because of the great power that was in them, it has been unfolded in every part of the world.”
Second, since mustard seeds have a sharp tangy taste, pray in the morning to spark some fever. Being fervent in faith literally means having the warmth of spirit or even a burning zeal; stirring into flame as our Second Reading puts it, rather than being indifferent or lukewarm.
The third thing to uproot and transplant mulberry tree is to understand that it is always God’s grace that precedes our good works.
Move in the opposite spirit and claim for yourself the verse we hear today from Luke 17:10, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.”
The verse means we are servants to whom nothing is owed, which has a doctrinal basis that merit and reward by good works are rooted in God’s gratuitous grace and is dependent on grace, as the Council of Trent teaches.
St. Paul's preaching and writing stresses "By grace are you saved, through faith!"
Saint Augustine, says that God provides prior grace for good works so that “when God crowns our merits, he crowns his gifts to us.”
Now for the most powerful step after (1) being small; (2) daily fervent prayer (3) and knowing that God’s grace precedes and enables our good works, the (4) fourth is tapping into the “fulfillment formula” of God’s sovereignty by God’s divine passives.
The passive voice in Scripture is an intentional stylistic choice to demonstrate God’s sovereignty. The unspoken agent is God.
A little grammar review:
Active Voice: I loved your book.
Passive voice: Your book was loved.
Passive-aggressive voice: I loved how you felt the need to write a book!
Notice that in passive voice, the performer of an action, called the "agent," can be hidden in the sentence because they are not the subject of the sentence.
The Divine Passive means that there is power in the specific verse to be claimed by faith because the agent is God.
“Is fulfilled,” Luke 4:21;
“a Savior has been born for you” (Luke 2:11);
“Confirmed for us by those who had heard” (Hebrews 2:2);
“It was spoken,”
“Was conceived,”
“I was mercifully treated” (1 Timothy 1:16)
And the mustard seed in Matthew 13:32 “it was grown.” 2
Matthew uses the divine passive to narrate the miraculous events that accompany the crucifixion. The curtain is torn, the earth was shaken, the rocks were split, tombs were opened, and bodies were raised (Matthew 27:51–52)
Application:
Mulberry trees have an invasive root system: they are notorious for cracking house foundations, wells and cisterns, making the tree nearly impossible to eradicate once planted nearby a structure. It is a metaphor for the deeply rooted nature of sin and offenses.
“Be uprooted” is a divine passive.
Believe that it is “done” already by God’s power; God is the agent so tap into that by faith.
This concerns the sovereignty of God. Not our own ingenuity, creativity its Jesus’ power independent of man’s control.
The mulberry tree uprooted, now move it to the ocean, where it will be gone for good.
What is interesting is that I noticed that Satan's speech is active, not in the passive voice to reflect his fundamental nature as a creature, devoid of divine authority.
Mary’s "May it be done to me according to your word" is an example of the passive voice as she responds to God’s request.
Our Lady of Kibeho reintroduced the Seven Sorrows Chaplet to the visionary Marie-Claire Mukangango in Kibeho, Rwanda, in the 1980s: an approved apparition.
From Our Lady of Kibeho, the Second promise for those who pray the Seven Sorrows Chaplet is you shall be freed from obsessions and addiction. Transplanted to sea, as it were.
1. Matthew 13:32 is a divine passive which may be a better translation instead of the USSB translation of 'when full-grown.'
2. My source on the teaching on Divine Passives is from Robbie Booth, God as the Agent of Kingdon Growth: An Argument for Divine Passives in Matthew 13:32, 33, JETS 62.4 (2019): 705–19.
