Faith goes hand in hand with long-term work. It is the

fruit of efforts repeated day after day. Faith is something

that lives, something that we must never separate from our

everyday life. This is what we need to understand if we are

to discover the hidden meaning of Jesus' words: 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.

We can move a mountain, but only if we do not rush at

it, thinking to move it in one go. We can move a mountain,

but only if we are ready to move it stone by stone. Every

stone we move - that is, every time we succeed in something,

however small - increases our faith; we begin to feel that we

are stronger and more stalwart, more in control of the

situation. And then one day, if we look back at the progress

we have made and find that half the work is already done,

it is just possible that our faith will have become so strong

that we can move the rest in one go.