Today we have some extraordinary readings -- I know I say that a lot, but that's because it's often true. These are especially powerful, though: Elijah's mysterious encounter with God in the silence after the storm on Mount Horeb, and the story of how Jesus walked on the water and calmed a storm -- and tried, unsuccessfully at this point, to convince Simon Peter that he could walk on water, too.So there's commentary on the Gospel from the Dominicans, The Sourcebook, and (of all people) LBJ; there are several poems inspired by it; then we have some commentary from the wonderful Frederick Buechner about Elijah, the kind of man he was and the kind of adventures he had before he climbed Mount Horeb. And, because this Friday we celebrate the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, we have two extra tidbits: Mary Ellen Hynes describes the history of the feast itself, and Donagh O'Shea offers wonderful thoughts about who Mary was, and what her life was like. It's kind of a letdown to get me at the tail end, but I tried to pull both readings together, imagining what the experiences were like and thinking about how Jesus often reaches out to help us walk on water, but that sometimes we have trouble hearing his voice because we don't listen for it.
August 10, 2014: Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a: At the mountain of God, Horeb, Elijah came to a cave where he took shelter. Then the LORD said to him, “Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD. …” the LORD was not in the wind. … the LORD was not in the earthquake. … The LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face. …
Psalm 85: Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
Romans 9:1-5: Brothers and sisters: I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie. …
Matthew 14:22-33: During the fourth watch of the night, [Jesus] came toward them walking on the sea. … They cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
August is the month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Scripture Notes from the Sourcebook:
THE FIRST READING: The prophet Elijah, discouraged by the seeming failure of his prophetic ministry, is actually fleeing for his life when he arrives at Mt. Horeb or Sinai (see 1 Kings 19:1-8). Like Moses and the Israelites before him, Elijah experiences the presence of God there. God made himself known to Elijah in a “tiny whispering sound,” not in the thunder and volcanic activity that Moses experienced (see Exodus 19:16-18). Elijah hid his face when he sensed the presence of God for it was believed that no one could see the face of God and live (Exodus 33:20).
RESPONSORIAL PSALM 85: Elijah did indeed see the kindness of the Lord on Mt. Horeb when God reassured him concerning his prophetic mission. Note the virtues associated with the presence of God: kindness, truth, justice, peace. If we read 1 Kings 19 a bit further, we see how God’s justice was made known and his kindness manifest (verses 14-18).
SECOND READING: Paul writes of the deep anguish and pain that he experiences over the fact that many of his Jewish brothers and sisters have not believed that Jesus was Messiah and Lord. He is the fulfillment of all that was promised to them of old, yet they do not see or understand. What lengths Paul would go to if it would lead them to faith.
THE GOSPEL: Jesus’s compassion for the hungry and sick crowd mirrors that of God for his people as heard in today’s First Reading. With the meager resources at hand, five loaves and two fish, and prayer, Jesus provided food in abundance for the multitude. Matthew’s description of the event echoes his account of the Last Supper and our own celebration of the Eucharist.
PASTORAL REFLECTION: Many times challenge courses are used to create a team bond. After challenging someone beyond their desired comfort zone, an individual uncovers a whole new side of trust and belief in themselves and their group. If you ever have a chance to ask for or offer this opportunity, keep this Gospel in mind. If this is not possible, look up footage online of the man who walked a tightrope all the way across Niagara Falls in 2012, for to overcome any challenge, inner balance (prayer) is necessary. Outer balance (trust in or support from others) is vital. And, strength (mind over matter) is paramount. Consider the impossible this week, and allow Jesus’s courage to replace your doubt. --2014 Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons & Weekends
WALKING ON WATER:
Water is the source of life. "On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem," said the prophet Zechariah (14:8), prophesying the new age. "Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water," said Jesus (John 7:38), echoing many passages in the Scriptures.
Yet water also reminded the Jews of the Deluge of old and was therefore a symbol of destruction. The prophets used this symbol of the chaotic sea to speak about coming disasters. In its depths lurked "Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent…the dragon that is in the sea" (Isaiah 27:1). Water, then, is a symbol of both life and death. (Both of these meanings are merged in baptism; by immersion in the baptismal waters we die to sin and self, but emerge into new life.)
In today's reading Jesus appears out of the night, "walking toward them on the sea." It is a symbol of his triumph over chaos and evil. The scene is full of symbolic association. Peter, the chief disciple, ventures into this dangerous element, and makes his way while he keeps his attention on the Lord, but he sinks once he thinks about danger. With him it was an experiment: "if it is you…." 'If' is an expression of doubt, not of faith.
Peter's cry for help is a pure expression of prayer. Christians have long meditated on this. Here are some brief reflections from the great 19th-century preacher, C.H. Spurgeon:
"Sinking times are praying times….Short prayers are long enough….There were but three words in the petition which Peter gasped out ("Lord, save me!"), but they were sufficient for his purpose….Not length but strength…. A sense of need is a mighty teacher of brevity…. If our prayers had less of the tail feathers of pride and more wing they would be all the better…. Verbiage is to devotion as chaff to wheat. Precious things lie in small compass, and all that is real prayer in many a long address might have been uttered in a petition as short as that of Peter." --- Donagh O’Shea for the Dominicans of Ireland, Today’s Good News
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.'--Lyndon B. Johnson
Death, heaven, bread, breath and the sea
Here
to scare me
But I too will be fed by
the other food
that I know nothing
of, the breath
the death
the sea of
it
Day
when the almond does not
blossom and the grasshopper drags itself along
But if You can make a star from nothing You can raise me up.
-- Franz Wright
FROM PSALM 69:
Save me, God, for the waters have reached my neck.
I have sunk into the mire of the deep,
where there is no foothold.
I have gone down to the watery depths;
the flood overwhelms me.
I am weary with crying out … My eyes fail,
from looking for my God.
A poem that tries to imagine the reflection of Jesus on the water
DOES A MIRROR FORGET?
Does a mirror forget?
I believe it does not.
I believe a mirror will not forget
If you come to it superb.
Clear gaze of mirrors
Towards the gaze of God:
As the waters of Galilee
Upholding the superb Feet.
--Jose Garcia Villa
ON LISTENING FOR GOD’S VOICE: “When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art _________________________________________________________________________
(Today’s first reading has Elijah on Mount Horeb because he’s running for his life, having ticked off King Ahab & Queen Jezebel by showing that the prophets of Baal were fake. But Elijah was a bit arrogant himself, and in Frederick Buechner’s sermon on the subject, he has an interesting interpretation of what happened next at the Mountain of God, and how Elijah had to be reminded again that he wasn’t the one in charge. – Diane Sylvain)
FREDERICK BUECHNER TALKS ABOUT ELIJAH: In the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal to see whose God was the real article, Elijah won the first round hands down. Starting out early in the morning on Mt. Carmel, the prophets of Baal pulled out all the stops to get their candidate to set fire to the sacrificial offering. They danced around the altar till their feet were sore. They made themselves hoarse shouting instructions and encouragement at the sky. They jabbed at themselves with knives thinking that the sight of blood would start things moving if anything would, but they might as well have saved themselves the trouble.
Although it was like beating a dead horse, Elijah couldn't resist getting in a few digs. "Maybe Baal's flown to Bermuda for the weekend," he said. "Maybe he's taking a nap." The prophets whipped themselves into greater and greater frenzies under his goading, but by mid-afternoon the sacrificial offering had begun to smell a little high, and there was still no sign of fire from above. Then it was Elijah's turn to show what Yahweh could do.
He was like a magician getting ready to pull a rabbit out of a hat. First he had a trench dug around the altar and filled with water. Then he got a bucket brigade going to give the offering a good dousing too. Then as soon as they'd finished, he got them to do it again for good measure. By the time they'd finished a third go-round, the whole place was awash, and Elijah looked as if he'd just finished swimming the Channel. He then gave Yahweh the word to show his stuff and jumped back just in time. Lightning flashed. The water in the trench fizzed like fat on a hot griddle. Nothing was left of the offering but a pile of ashes and a smell like the Fourth of July. The onlookers were beside themselves with enthusiasm and, at a signal from Elijah, demolished the losing team down to the last prophet. Nobody could say whose victory had been greater, Yahweh's or Elijah's.
But the sequel to the event seems to have made this clear. Queen Jezebel was determined to get even with Elijah for what he had done to her spiritual advisers, and to save his skin he went and hid out on Mt. Horeb. Again he gave Yahweh the word, not because he wanted anything set on fire this time, but just to keep his hand in. Again the lightning flashed, and after that a wind came up that almost blew Elijah off his feet, and after that the earth gave such a shake that it almost knocked him silly. But there wasn't so much as a peep out of Yahweh, and Elijah stood there like a ringmaster when the lion won't jump through the hoop.
Only when the fireworks were finished and a terrible hush fell over the mountain did Elijah hear something, and what he heard was so much like silence that it was only through the ear of faith that he knew it was Yahweh. Nonetheless, the message came through loud and clear: that there was no longer any question who had been the star at Mt. Carmel and that not even Elijah could make the Lord God of Hosts jump through a hoop like a lion or pop out like a rabbit from a hat.~ Frederick Buechner, originally published in Peculiar Treasures and later in Beyond Words
We celebrate the Assumption with a mass at 8 a.m. this coming Friday, August 15, at Sacred Heart. This is a Holy Day of Obligation. Following are two reflections of this solemnity, the story of the Feast itself & the Dominicans’ take on the subject.
THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY INTO HEAVEN: AUGUST 15
Byzantine Christians keep [August 15] as the “Dormition,” which means the “falling asleep” of Mary. It is Mary’s greatest feast, her Passover. Throughout the evening of August 14 a vigil is kept in mourning for the death of Mary. An icon 9a picture) of Mary is decorated with fragrant herbs and fresh flowers. At dawn on August 15, the bells ring out in joy.
After the horrors of the Second World War, after the death camps, after the first use of nuclear weapons, we Christians needed to remind ourselves of the holiness of creation. In 1950, Pope Pius XII declared what Catholics had long believed: After Mary’s death, God raised her body. She lives with God for ever. On Assumption Day we rejoice that his broken world will be made new again. The barren, the poor, the unloved and even the dead will be raised into glory.
Assumption Day sometimes is thought of as Mary’s “harvesting” into heaven. This is a day to thank God for the bounty of growing things. Many churches gather baskets of garden vegetables, herbs and flowers around a statue of Mary. We remember Mary’s song of praise from the Gospel of Luke, ”The Lord has lifted up the lowly. The Lord has filled the hungry with good things.” – Mary Ellen Hynes, from Companion to the Calendar
Muslims have a tradition that Mohammed was illiterate. It is a way of saying that the Koran was God's production, not his. This tradition is similar, as far as it goes, to the Christian teaching about Mary’s virginity. One of the differences is that the normal way of nature requires only one author for a book, but two parents for a child. Muslims then can say that the Koran is not a human production at all, but Christians can say that Jesus is fully from God and also fully human. “Perfectus Deus, perfectus homo,” says the Athanasian Creed.
Human. What is human? Many say human when they mean human pride. When the Roman emperor Nero saw his immense palace, the domus aurea, finally completed, having burnt down part of the city to make way for it, he said, “Ah, at last a house fit for a man!” Many who are less extreme than he (there have been very few who were more) would still think of human life as consisting in some degree of success, power, recognition….
By every standard of the day, Mary was only barely human. She was not only female in a world ruled by men, she was unmarried (though betrothed); she was young in a world that valued age; she was poor in a world that saw poverty as God's curse; she was a peasant remote from the centres of power. Yet the Liturgy calls her “the greatest honour of our race.” (Incidentally, did the person who composed that line forget about Jesus at that point?) ‘Human’ must mean something deeper than power, recognition, and the rest.
Is she powerless then? “I am the servant of the Lord,” she said, “let it be done to me according to your word.” Does it confirm her in her identity as a powerless woman, passive and dependent? If so, then it confirms all women in that identity. But more: it confirms all disciples, all Christians – for Mary is seen as the perfect disciple, the model for all disciples, men as well as women. Was she powerless?
Far from it. As she crossed the hill country to visit her elderly cousin, she was not bearing a child for her husband, as other women did. She was in the role of a prophet. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you,” as later the Spirit would later overshadow Jesus at the Transfiguration (Lk 9:34), and the group of disciples in the upper room (Acts 1:8). In her, God is doing a new thing. She does not model conventionality and social compliance; she is in the line of Old Testament valiant women, as her Magnificat makes clear. In her the spiritual paradox of power and powerlessness is plain to be seen. --- Donagh O’Shea for the Dominicans of Ireland, Today’s Good News
Reflection for August 10, 2014:
Walk on Water and Listening Through the Storm
One fine day a long time ago, Elijah the prophet scrambled up the Mountain of God, and once he’d reached that windy summit, he ducked into a cave in search of shelter. But the Lord spoke to him there, saying: “Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will be passing by.” And so Elijah went out of the cave, a bit nervous, naturally – watchful and wondering what would happen next. And this is what happened: A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD – but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake – but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, there was a fire – but the LORD was not in the fire. And then, after all that – while Elijah’s ears were still ringing from all the tumult, and his heart was pounding from the terror of the earthquake, and his cheeks still stinging from the shards of the flying rocks, and his face was still scorched from the fierceness of the fire – after all that, there came into the terrible echoing silence the very smallest of all small sounds – what our Lectionary calls a tiny whispering sound and the King James Bible describes as a still small voice and others have translated as “a sound that was the sheer sound of silence.” That was it. There was nothing else, nothing at all, except for that smallest, almost indescribable sound. But when Elijah heard it, he knew what it meant – and he hid his face in the folds of his cloak, and went to stand quietly at the entrance of his cave.
Many, many years later, whole centuries later, another man went up to a mountain of God. It was a different mountain, and the man’s name was Jesus, but even though he was more than an ordinary man, he also felt a deep need to pray and seek out the silence and clarity that are best found at the top of a mountain. Meanwhile, some of his friends took off in a boat, planning to get a head start on the next stage of things – making their way over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee so they could set up camp and get things ready for Jesus whenever he got back. But it didn’t quite work out that way. Because a sudden storm came up – and we’ve had enough wild, wondrous, roof-rocking storms lately to know how sudden such storms can be: how all at once the trees are leaping and dancing, and the leaves are flying and falling, and the thunder and lightning are splitting the clouds, and the rain is splattering into your eyes until you can hardly see. And of course it would be even scarier out on the water, with the boat heaving and bucking under you like a wild horse, and the lightning crackling around your head until every one of your hairs is standing on end.
That was frightening enough. But then, all at once, during the fourth watch of the night, as Matthew carefully notes, the disciples looked up and saw, of all things, Jesus himself coming across the water toward them through the wind and the waves. Out there in the middle of the Sea of Galilee – strolling across the water as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. Naturally, the guys were scared out of their few remaining wits. “It’s a g-g-g-ghost!!!” as one or the other hollered out helpfully, just like one of the extras in a horror movie. And they cried out in fear, Matthew tells us. But at once, Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter – straining his eyes through the dark and still not quite believing – responded with what almost sounds like a dare: “Lord, if it’s really you, command me to come to you on the water.” And Jesus simply replied to him: “Come.” And Peter, realizing that it really was Jesus, did.
It’s never as easy as it looks, this miracle stuff. Peter … began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was, he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Reading these stories today, I think of two things. One concerns the Elijah story, and that is a reminder that we have a bad habit of looking for God in the Special Effects of Life – in the sound and the fury, in the thunder and the flame. We’re not much for silence these days; if the Lord were to speak to us “in a tiny whispering sound,” chances are we wouldn’t hear it, not over the roar of our powerful engines and our ranting raving TVs and our constant background music and our endlessly ringing cellphones and loud conversations – not to mention our noisy and ceaseless interior monologues. But you can’t hear a still small voice unless you’re quiet yourself. That’s just the way it is.
The other thing is that, even when we can’t see him, no matter how dark and stormy it gets, Jesus is here already, walking toward us across the sea of our doubts and fears. We might feel alone and abandoned, but Jesus is with us, saying, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” And when we lose faith for whatever reason and start to struggle and sink, Jesus is there to stretch out a strong brown hand and haul us spluttering up to the surface again.
Like many people, I’ve been finding life kind of stormy for a while, and a lot of troubles are hammering the people I love. I try to keep my head – and the rest of me – above water, but sometimes, in fact a lot of times, I flounder and sink. Like Peter, I gasp and splash and swear, desperately trying to regain my footing, drowning in fear and doubt. And every time I do so, if I gather just enough courage and faith to reach out my hand, Jesus grabs ahold of it, hard, and pulls me back to safety. He must be tired by now of saying to me, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” But he keeps doing it anyway – rescuing me, reassuring me, letting me catch my breath, and then showing me enough trust to send me out to walk the waters of the world again. I suspect we’ll keep doing this until the end of my life, and maybe longer. It’s not easy, learning to walk on water. And that’s what we’re all doing, trying to get through the storms of life. At least Jesus is with us, saying, “Do not be afraid.” – Diane Sylvain