Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080915.cfm

I've noticed that the giving or serving of food to another can be a great show of love and caring for that person. Whether it is the preparing and serving of a meal or the offer of a coffee or a pop or some sort of sweet during a friendly visit, the food and/or beverage is being offered as a form of hospitality. When we welcome someone into our home, we want them to feel welcomed. We want them to feel some relaxation from their work and toil of the day. Just as a hospital is meant to help a sick or injured person get relief from their illness or injury, hospitality is meant to give people relief from stress and worries. So the simple gesture of offering food shows a level of love and caring.

When I was in college, one of my biggest joys was going to the mail room on campus and seeing that I had received a package. More often than not, the package was from home and that usually meant a care package from Mom! Maybe some homemade cookies, or some candies, or even some snacks for my dorm room. Sometimes, even if Mom was just forwarding mail from home or sending me something that I had forgotten on a recent trip home, I would still find candy in the bottom of the box. It was a small gesture, but I appreciated the love that was behind it. It doesn't take long at college to figure out why they are called “care” packages.

Our Christian faith believes very strongly in the love and care that God has for His people. We can see this quite clearly in Sacred Scripture. The words of our Catholic liturgies also talk about the love of God and how we His people are giving thanks for that love. After all, as you may recall, the word Eucharist means “Thanksgiving”. We give thanks every time we come before this altar.

As a part of this love and care that God has for all of us, He of course gives us what we need in order to be with Him in His Kingdom. I'm not talking about a simple “care package” that only tides us over for a little bit of time. I'm talking about providing us with what we need to reach Heaven.

Today's Gospel reading continues with the Bread of Life Discourses, in which Jesus declares Himself to be the Bread of Life that has come down from Heaven. We Catholics see this section of St. John's Gospel to be about the Most Holy Eucharist. In fact, much of our theology of the Eucharist is taken from these discourses.

The Eucharist is very much connected with food. This Sacrament was started at a meal, the Last Supper. It is bread and wine that are brought forward to become the Body and Blood, and still has the appearance of bread and wine. So it is not surprising that the Eucharist is often compared to food that is needed for survival. Just as earthly food is needed so that we can work and play and have the strength we need do our part in this world, so the Eucharist is necessary to strengthen our soul so that we can focus on getting to Heaven. When a person is at the point of death, their last Communion is often referred to as Viaticum. Viaticum is a Latin term that translates to “Food for the Journey”. As the body is dying, the soul is receiving the help it needs to make that final part of the trip. Even before we are on our death bed, however, the Eucharist is still a necessary part of our journey.

The First Reading today is about the prophet Elijah. At this point in his story, Elijah is pretty much at his wit's end. He has been working hard for God, and as a result he has also made a few enemies along the way. One of those enemies is a queen named Jezebel who wants him killed. So he goes into the desert to hide, and has decided that it would be better to die of starvation and dehydration than to continue living with this torment. God has other pans though, and sends an angel to bring him food and water. “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you”. After eating and drinking, Elijah walks forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb. Whenever there is a mountain in Scripture, it means there is going to be a very intense and close interaction with God. It is at Mount Horeb that Elijah is encouraged by God and is shown how powerful and incredible God really is.

God wants to give us the food we need for our own journey through the Eucharist. But He doesn't do it in quite the same way that He does it for Elijah. He doesn't just give us the food and then expects us to be well on our way. He does something more special than that.

I was recently listening to the radio and I heard a program with a Dominican Friar who pointed out something neat about the prayers in the Roman Missal for today. In a little while, the offerings of bread and wine will be brought to the altar and I will say this prayer over them: “Be pleased, O Lord, to accept the offerings of your Church, for in your mercy you have given them to be offered and by your power you transform them into the mystery of our salvation.” What this is saying is that God has given us the bread and wine that we will use at this Mass. Yes, it was human hands that made the bread and wine itself, but it was only through the mercy of God that the wheat and the grapes were grown and harvested and eventually made into those things. So God gave us the food, but now we turn around and offer it back to Him in thanksgiving for these and all that God has given us. Then, through God's power, He transforms these gifts into the Eucharist, which we receive and once again give praise and thanks to God for this. I hope that you see that there is a constant back and forth between God and His Church. He gives us something, we offer it back in thanks, He transforms it, we receive it and then give praise to God as we come closer to Him through this very intimate interaction. All of this so that we might come ever closer to God in Heaven.

God has shown us great love and care in giving us the Eucharist. Let us receive it so that we might enter more fully into His mystery and one day enter into His Kingdom.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080215.cfm

We learn from a very early age that we all have five basic senses. One could argue that there are other senses that we have that allow us to take in the world around us (for example we have a sense of balance and a sense of direction). However, it is the five basic senses of touch, smell, hearing, sight, and taste that I want to focus on right now. We are dependent on those senses for understanding everything that is happening around us and what is happening to us. Even if one of those senses of an individual is blocked or disabled in some way, the other senses of that individual are often heightened to make up for the loss of the one. I'm sure we have all noticed how small children learn about many things simply by using as many of their senses as they can. It is fascinating to watch a baby or a toddler explore his or her world. They are constantly touching things and feeling with their hands and face. They listen and smell and watch and everything they can get their hands on will eventually end up in their mouth, whether it is edible or not.

When you think about it, our celebration of the Mass and the Sacraments utilize these different senses to help us enter more fully into worship. We smell the incense burning, the smoke of the candles, and the perfume of the Sacred Chrism at Confirmations and Baptisms. We hear the organ and other music, as well as the various prayers. This includes the words of absolution after we confess our sins to a priest. We see the colors of the vestments and altar cloths change throughout the seasons. We see the expanse of flowers and decorations at Christmas and Easter, and we see the stark simplicity of the altar at Advent and Lent. We watch as a couple make their vows and exchange rings, as water is poured on a baby's head, and as the priest offers the holy sacrifice of the Mass. We might not remember it, but we felt the water pour on our heads at Baptism and the Chrism on our heads at Confirmation. We feel each other's hands as we make the sign of peace and as we greet and say good bye. When it comes to the Eucharist, we can feel the Body and Blood touch our lips, and we taste them as well.

Despite all these sensory things going on in our liturgies, our senses are only able to tell us so much. There is the spiritual side to all of this as well. The Eucharist is a great example of this. We see, touch and taste what looks, feels, and tastes like unleavened bread and ordinary wine, yet our faith tells us that we are receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is so much more than ordinary food. It has been given to us from Heaven, by God.

Our first reading comes from the Book of Exodus. The Israelites have passed through the Red Sea, narrowly escaping Pharaoh's army. They are now in the desert on the Sinai Peninsula and without food. They will complain about water in the next chapter, but for now their concern is food. So they complain to Moses and his brother Aaron (their civil and spiritual leaders) that they would have rather have died in Egypt with full bellies than to die of starvation in the desert. God responds by giving quail in the evening and manna in morning. He even adds a test for the people to see if they are paying attention: each day they are only to collect as much as they need for each household. For forty years, God provided this manna of the Israelites until they finally made it into the Promised Land.

For the Jewish people, the manna was and still is a sign of God's loving providence. It shows that God was looking out for the people and was providing them with all that they needed. For us Christians we also recognize it as a sign of God's providence, but we also see it as a foreshadowing of an even bigger event that will take place several thousand years later in the New Testament. I am talking about the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper.

Today's Gospel reading from the Gospel of John is also a foreshadowing of the Eucharist. Last week we heard about the multiplication of the loaves and fish. The people there were very excited about this miracle and have now followed Jesus hoping to see more. Jesus tells them that they should be looking for something much more important than a next meal. The people then ask for a sign from Jesus so that they will believe in Him. They witnessed the miracle with the loaves and fish, but they want to make sure it wasn't just a coincidence or a fluke. They want to see Jesus do one more sign or miracle before they make their last leap of faith and continue to follow Him. The people reference the same sign that we just read about from Exodus. “He gave them bread from heaven to eat”. Jesus then explains that this bread from heaven was given to the Israelites by God, and brings life to the world. He then says the line that will be our refrain for the next several weeks: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst”. Jesus is the bread of life; the bread of life is the Eucharist; the Eucharist is Jesus.

We Catholics believe in what is called Transubstantiation. The word means “to change substance” and it is the reason we can say that the Eucharist is truly Jesus even though it still looks, feels and tastes like bread and wine. The substance of a thing is what it actually is, as opposed to it's physical characteristics. As I said at the beginning we can tell what something is by our senses taking in it's physical characteristics. We can tell that something is a building or a tree or a person by looking, and touching, et cetera. During the Eucharistic prayer, the physical characteristics of the bread and wine on the altar stay the same, but the substance changes. It is no longer bread and wine, but the Body and Blood of Jesus. It is not longer just ordinary bread, but the Bread of Life that has come to bring life to the world.

Our senses can tell us a lot about the world, but we need our faith to understand the spiritual. God has given us a great spiritual gift in giving us Eucharist. Let us continue our worship in thanksgiving for that gift.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072615.cfm

When I was a child, it was always a special treat when I could go to a local arcade gallery and have some fun playing the games. My trips to the arcade weren't all that frequent, and I never got that good at any of the games, but I still had fun when I could go. When I got to the arcade, I would of course beg my mother for some money so that I could play. I can't remember how much my mom normally gave me, but I'm sure I asked for more on occasion. I doubt I was ever successful at getting more, but I'm sure I asked. Since this arcade didn't take regular quarters, I needed to take the money to a token machine to change it into arcade tokens. It was probably 25 cents per token. So if you put in $5, it would count out 20 tokens. I don't know where I got this idea from, but I remember being convinced that there was a secret way to trick the machine into giving you more tokens than you had paid for. For some reason I thought that if I put the money in the machine a special way (like at an angle), or if I hit the machine just right, or perhaps if I didn't touch it at all and stood back a bit, the machine might make an error in my favor and give me some extra tokens. I was hoping for some extra play time.

Looking back I realize now how silly I was. I obviously had no idea how this machine worked. The machine was designed to only give as many tokens as had been paid for. I could hold my breath and stand on one leg with my arms flapping like a bird for all it cared, it wasn't going to give me extra tokens. But I sure wanted them.

I think we can all relate to times when we knew that we had received enough of something, but it would be fun if we had more. I'm not talking about greed or gluttony where we are obsessed with getting more and more. I'm talking about those thoughts we have when we think it would be neat to have a little extra. Like when you are at a restaurant and you hope for a nice large portion of your favorite food, or you hope for a little extra ice-cream with your dessert. I love it when I travel by airplane and I ask for a coke and instead of only giving me that small glass they give me the whole can! It's a small thing, but I feel like I won the jackpot!

Our Readings for today talk about God's loving and giving nature. Not only does He give us what we need, but He also gives us much more than we expect. We see this first in the Second Book of Kings with the prophet Elisha. A man brings twenty barley loaves made from the first fruits of grain. This is made from the first barley grains that had been harvested for that season. Farmers would traditionally give the first fruits of their harvest as a sacrificial gift to God as a way of giving thanks for a successful harvest. When you think about it, it is a very humbling gesture, giving back to God what is truly His. After all, He is the one who gave us the plants and animals and food to eat. In the same way, the first born son was often consecrated to God by the parents as a way of acknowledging that the gift of birth and offspring is from God. This man is giving these loaves, made from the first fruits, to God by handing them over to the prophet. God then tells the prophet what to do with the loaves: “Give it to the people to eat”. We are talking about giving twenty small loaves (about the size of a dinner roll) to around a hundred people. Of course the servant objects, pointing out that this will be impossible. Elisha simply repeats the command and gives the prophecy, “They shall eat and there shall be some left over”. And the prophecy comes true.

Now, it is important for us to understand that the typical Jewish believer of Jesus' day knew the stories of the Old Testament like the back of their hand. So when we come to the Gospel for today and hear this story about an even larger crowd of over five thousand being fed with an even smaller amount of food of only five loaves and two fish, we can be assured that the Apostles and all those who were present there knew the story of Elisha and the barley loaves very well. As the people watched the miracle of the multiplication unfold before their eyes they would have noticed the connection with the Old Testament story very quickly. They would have quickly seen that Jesus was acting in much the same way as Elisha did hundreds of years before. We even see at the end of the Gospel that the people got so excited that they even tried to carry Jesus off to make Him king. They knew that God was doing something special for them, something well beyond a simple meal.

This story begins a section of St. John's Gospel called the “Bread of Life Discourse”. We will see next week that the people will be so excited about this miracle that they will follow Him, asking for another miracle and another meal. Jesus will be explaining for the next several weeks, that the people are not looking for regular bread, but the bread that gives eternal life: the Eucharist.

Even with just this Gospel story alone, we can see that Jesus is doing so much more than just giving a meal. Elisha is giving more than just a meal. In both cases, God could have simply given just enough food to get them to the next town where they could buy their own food. Or He could have produced just enough for them to be satisfied for that day. Instead, in both cases, He gives them what they need, plus a whole lot more. Twelve wicker baskets full of leftovers in the Gospel. That's a lot more than a couple extra tokens at an arcade. And that's just on the surface of these stories. Imagine what God can do for us spiritually, if we just ask.

Jesus gives Himself to us each and every day, but especially when ever we come to Him in the Church and in the Eucharist. When we receive Christ we receive not just what we want or need, but so much more. Let us come before Christ, ready to receive.

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071915.cfm


We all are attracted to something, though it doesn't take long to notice that what we are attracted to varies greatly from person to person. As human persons, what we truly want is to be happy; we want to be filled with joy. It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that what we are often attracted to are the things that we perceive will bring us happiness.

Very often we think we will find happiness if we own that one thing. We listen to those infomercials on TV that promise us immense satisfaction if we call now and buy their product. Have you ever noticed that when they start out these advertisements, they always show some goof ball who clearly has no idea what he or she is doing? A voice comes on and asks, “Are you tired of having to struggle with your old garden hose?” (or whatever it is they're selling). The person is usually making a mess or causing themselves pain and frustration of epic proportions. In this case maybe the old garden hose is tangled and water is getting everywhere except where you need it. Then the voice comes back as says, “Then you need to try the new 'Water-matic Three-thousand'”, or some other snazzy sounding name. Whereas the old product shows the users being frustrated and grimacing as they struggle with their chores, the new product shows a new set of people who are smiling and are clearly enjoying using the new Water-matic Three-thousand, or whatever it is. The voice continues to describe why their product is so much better than anything you may have used before. The price is even kept at rock bottom low, plus the obligatory “$9.95 shipping and handling”. And what infomercial would be complete without hearing the words, “But wait, there's more! Call know and receive a handy book light with every order”.

The makers of those products and infomercials want us to believe that buying certain things will bring us the happiness that we want. They want us to be attracted to those things. Even our society tries to tell us that the more we have the more we will be happy. The truth is, certain things may bring us happiness for awhile, but there is no guarantee that it will last forever. No one ever said that life was fair, and we all know from experience that it isn't always happy either. There is something more important than material things that we should be attracted to.

We can also be attracted to people of course. TV shows and movies often give the impression that if we find the right friend or the right boyfriend or girlfriend, or the right spouse we will find all the happiness that we hope for in life. It is true that close family members and friends can bring us many wonderful hours of laughter, happiness and companionship throughout life. They offer support and consolation in difficult times as well. However, anyone who has been married could probably regale us with stories of times when marriage wasn't exactly the fairytale that some make it out to be. We believe that God blesses spouses in a special way on their wedding day, but even with those blessings there are still fights and anger and frustration. Attraction to another human being, whether in or out of marriage does not bring perfect joy.

The answer, as you probably all expected, is with God. Sacred Scripture shows us that our perfect joy can only be found in our relationship with God. It is He who we are attracted to. All other attractions that we find on earth, like material things and people, are only attractive to us because we think they will fulfill our desire to be happy. They only fulfill it for a limited amount of time, however. God can fulfill it for eternity.

In Mark's Gospel today, we hear a continuation from last week's Gospel is which the Twelve Apostles are sent out two by two to preach repentance and drive out demons. Now they have returned and are amazed at what they were able to accomplish. Jesus knows what they need and invites them to go to deserted place to rest. He knows that after preaching and casting out demons they needed some time alone with God. It's not unlike how we are invited back to this place of prayer each week after spending time being a witness to Christ to all we meet. As they go to this little mini retreat, many others come as well and arrive before them. Why do all these people want to come to a deserted place? Why did the Twelve want to go off with Jesus in the boat? Why do we wish to spend our free time on a perfectly good weekend in church? Because we are attracted to God. We are drawn towards Him and want to be with Him. Even some of the people who come to Jesus in the Gospel today may have been complete strangers to Christ. He responds by having pity on them and begins to teach them.

St. Paul talks in His Letter to the Ephesians about how those who were once far off have now “become near because of the blood of Christ”. In other words, Christ has brought us together through His blood. It is through His blood that we are redeemed and so we desire to be with Christ, the Son of God. We are attracted to God.

It is all good and well for me to say that we should all keep our focus and attention on God. Deep down I think we all know this already. The difficulty is in the distractions. I'm talking about all those material things and the relationships that I was talking about before that we think will make us happy. All those who try to get us to pay more attention to those things (to focus on buying more stuff and to worry about relationships) are not unlike the shepherds that the Prophet Jeremiah warns us about in the first reading. These false shepherds try to lure people away from God for their own profit, just as many today try to lure us into buying products and relationship help all for their profit as well. But as Jeremiah says, one will come who will help us and give us what we truly need, like a good shepherd. Christ will lead us to the Father. There we will find our true joy.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070515.cfm

          We all have difficulties and challenges that we must face during our lifetime.  The temptation for us is to look at these difficulties with a degree of annoyance, frustration, or even anger.  We use them as excuses to complain and to wallow in our self-pity about how hard we have it.  They can cause us to take our frustrations out on family and friends and those around us.  We might even blame God for causing these difficulties.  Sacred Scripture encourages us to look at these hardships in another light, however; to see them as opportunities to grow in holiness.  Sometimes God allows us to go through difficulties and even sufferings to help us get ready for something bigger that will happen later in our lives.  Maybe God just wants to get us ready for Heaven in some way.  Our Christian tradition often refers to this as redemptive suffering.  Granted, anyone who has suffered will tell you that it is hard to see any redemptive qualities when a person is in the midst of suffering.  But I hope that we can all realize that God can still work miracles even in the midst of our sufferings.

          Our second reading today gives us a passage from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.  Paul explains that in order to keep him from becoming too prideful because of all the wondrous things that had happened to him, he was given what he calls “a thorn in the flesh…an angel of Satan”.  Now, scholars are still debating about what this “thorn in the flesh” was.  Some have argued that it was a literal physical pain.  Perhaps it was a chronic pain that would have made it hard to focus on what he needed to do.  Others say it was a spiritual affliction, pointing to the part about the angel of Satan beating him.  Satan would have loved to stop the Apostle’s mission to preach the Gospel to all the nations.  Some maintain that it was more of a psychological ailment, that Paul’s mind was causing the pain and/or the distractions that he was experiencing.  Still others say that it was combination of these three or that the thorn and the angel are all metaphorical and that some other outside source was causing these challenges to Paul.

          Paul says that he prayed to Jesus about this and asked Him three different times to take away this thorn.  Whatever the difficulty or suffering this thorn caused Paul, Jesus refuses to take it away.  He tells Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness”.  Jesus is reminding Paul that he is only human and that this human nature is prone to weakness.  But that’s okay, Jesus is explaining.  He is offering Paul grace which is able to work through Paul’s human weakness and help him to complete what he needs to do.  St. Paul’s sufferings helped him to do the hard work he did in his life and ultimately helped him to grow in holiness and to enter into Heaven.

          Many times in life we experience some sort of struggle or difficulty, but later on we see how that experience got us ready for something bigger later on.  Training for a sport or a race is a great example of this.  You can't just do a couple of sprints up and down your driveway and hope to be ready to do Grandma's Marathon.  Sometime the training can be even more excruciating than the actual event.

                   The last time the Olympic Games were held, I heard an interesting story about Gold Medalist Swimmer, Michael Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman.  Seeing that he had a terrific athlete on his hands, Bowman did everything he could to push Phelps to his limits.  He wanted to prepare Phelps for any struggles or challenges that he might have to face during a race in the pool.  Once when Phelps was at a national meet, he forgot his goggles before a race.  Bowman noticed what had happened, but instead of running the goggles out to Phelps, he decided to hold on to them and find out what he could do.  Phelps went ahead and swam without his goggles and won the race.  This later proved to be great training for him.  In the Games in Beijing, Phelps was swimming in a race when suddenly his goggles filled up with water.  Because he had experienced this before, however, he knew precisely what he needed to do to adjust to swimming blind.  Not only did he win the race, but he set a new world record.

          Just as a trainer or a coach will put an athlete through rigorous training to help him or her get ready for the big game or race, so also God will at times put us in situations that will challenge us in some way to help us grow in holiness and faith.  Maybe He gives us a small challenge to get us ready for a bigger challenge.  Perhaps He is challenging us to pray more and to understand what He does for us.

          The prophet Ezekiel talks today about how God called him to be a prophet.  God told him that he would be sent to the Israelites, that rebellious house.  He is warning the prophet that this mission, or assignment, will not be easy but a great challenge for the young man.  Like St. Paul a few centuries later, Ezekiel will have to learn to trust the God's grace is sufficient for him.  God is helping both the Apostle and the prophet to grow in holiness through these challenges.

          The Gospel continues on these same lines.  Jesus, as the Son of God, doesn't need any help in order to grow in holiness obviously, but the Father still sends Him into challenging situations.  Instead of helping Christ, however, these situations help us as we work at following the footsteps of Jesus.  Jesus Christ is Lord of lords and King of kings, yet we see in this Gospel that He can't convince people from His own hometown to listen to Him.  In fact we are told that He can't even perform any righteous deed there because of their lack of faith.

          We too are going to experience hardships, challenges, and difficulties, as I have been saying.  Like Jesus and Ezekiel, we may encounter people who don't want to listen to us.  The Church is experiencing this a lot lately with people not wanting to hear our stance on life, and human dignity, and marriage.  That might be our thorn in the flesh.  But know that despite these challenges, Christ is with us.  As He told Paul, His grace is sufficient.  Fear not, it will lead us to holiness.

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062815.cfm

          Everything has an intended purpose.  Some things might have a wide variety of uses, but everything has at least one purpose that it was intended to be used for.  I’ve noticed that it can make for good, clean comedy when a character in a movie uses an object for something other than its intended purpose.  Maybe she uses a dinner fork to comb her hair as the other characters look on in surprise.  Or a crazy doctor uses a chainsaw for surgery with a large hammer for anesthesia. 

          These are all humorous examples of misusing things, but I’m sure we can all think of examples where using a tool or other object correctly is important for safety.  I remember being in middle school shop class and hearing multiple times each day to be safe and to use the correct tool in the correct way for the correct job.  Of course, these are all very important reminders for a room full of teenagers surrounded by electric tools.  However, I learned those lectures on being safe so well, that I actually became afraid to use many of the tools.  After hearing all the things that could possibly go wrong with a band saw or a spinning lathe, I had no desire to be near those things.  I had to slowly build up my confidence until I finally felt confident using them.

          Our readings today bring up an important point for us to remember:  God made us to be imperishable; to have everlasting life.  Our purpose, from the very day of creation, has been to live with God for eternity in Heaven.  The Book of Wisdom is very clear on this.  “God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.”  We are made in the image and likeness of God, as we are told in the Book of Genesis.  That means that we have an intellect and a will and an imperishable soul.  We are also told that death was not an original part of God's plan for us.  “By the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who belong to his company experience it.”  Just to be clear, we are not talking about the physical death of the body that we all have to go through at some time.  The writer of the Book of Wisdom is not saying that we are supposed to have immortal bodies or that our own physical body isn't going to die at some point.  Rather, we are talking about a spiritual life versus a spiritual death. 

          As I said before, God wanted us to have everlasting life.  The devil, or Lucifer, was envious, as the Scripture tells us, however.  Lucifer mean light bearer, and he thought he was the prettiest angel and the greatest thing that God created.  But then he found out that God created us, and that He made us in His own image.  God was very pleased, but the devil was envious.  The devil and his angels fell from Heaven and death entered into the world.  He offers us many temptations and other gifts of pleasure to try to lure us away from our God given right to everlasting life. 

          One of the biggest temptations that the devil puts in our way is the lie that there is no such thing as everlasting life and that once we die then that's the end.  We might not hear this lie spoken in quite that way or quite that bluntly, but we can see it all that time in advertisements and TV shows.  They make it seem like we only have this one life and that we have to have the most fun before we die.  The focus is on death and that we should live out our lives having fun and not worrying about what comes later.  It's very popular right now to have a “bucket list”: it's supposed to be a list of all the things that a person wants to do before they “kick the bucket”.  If you have one of those lists, that's fine.  I'm happy for you.  But I think they're so morbid.  The focus is again on death.  What earthly riches and fading glory can I gain before I die?  Some of these bucket list things might be fun, but the happiness from that fun is going to pale in comparison to the joy that we will experience in everlasting life.  You want to know what's on my buck list?  I have one thing and that is to go to Heaven.  I want to live my life here on Earth so that I am worthy of life everlasting.  That should be our goal.

          Our Gospel today gives us a story to help us reflect on this very topic.  We hear the story of the curing of Jairus' daughter.  The story is interrupted briefly by the story of the woman with the hemorrhages.  The important thing for us to understand about Jairus and this unnamed woman is that both of them have run out of options.  They have tried everything else, and now they are coming before Jesus.  The woman, we are told, has been afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.  She has gone to many doctors for a cure and yet her symptoms have only grown worse and she continues to suffer.  For Jairus, we don't know how long his daughter may have suffered before this point, but now she is at the point of death.  Being a synagogue official, he no doubt could have afforded to have a doctor or two try to help his daughter.  On top of all that, as he is bringing Jesus back to his house, he is told of his daughter's death.  Despite these difficulties, both the woman and the man come before Christ as their last hope.

          A cynical look at these two stories might claim that they were there only because they had nothing left to loose.  On might say this is just one last desperate attempt at a cure.  Our Christian faith tells us differently, however.  They seek Christ because they have faith in Him.  They know that there is more to life than just completing a few goals here on earth and then you die.  They know that they have an everlasting soul that makes them imperishable.  Knowing this, they are able to hand themselves over to Christ completely.  The woman reaches through the crowd just to touch his clothes, knowing that will be enough.  Jairus pleads with Jesus to heal his daughter and still brings him to his house when he hears the bad news, knowing that he will make the difference. 

          Have faith, brothers and sisters.  Our purpose is not to just live for awhile and then die.  God has made us imperishable so that we may live for ever with Him.  That is our purpose.

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062115.cfm

The readings today give very clear images of the immense power that is behind storms and water and wind. This is especially true when all three are combined when we experience a storm over a large body of water. Even though we live in the Midwest, a far distance from the closest ocean, I think it is safe to say that we know something of the power of wind and water. We have all witnessed, I'm sure, what happens when the wind picks up over that rather large lake at the bottom of the hill. We have seen the waves crashing on the rocks down at the canal and even felt the bite of the wind as it whips across the lake in the winter time. We have all heard or read stories about the shipwrecks on Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes and have heard Gorden Lightfoot sing of the tragedy of the “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. I've seen what happens when a storm comes up on a small lake, so I am glad I have not experienced that on the big lake.

It doesn't even have to be a storm for us to experience this raw power of water. In the summer of 2012, many people in this area were victims of flooding and saw first hand the damage that water can bring. Every few weeks the TV news channels show us a new natural disaster that has taken place in the world, usually involving water. Whether it is flooding, mudslides, or tsunamis, water is able to bring destruction just as easily as it brings life to plants and animals. We have even seen that when a tropical storm or hurricane makes landfall, sometimes the greatest threat isn't the storm itself but the massive storm surge that comes with it. Huge waves come crashing in, flooding communities, causing damage, and taking human lives.

When it comes to water and wind and storms and other natural forces, there is really only so much that we can do. We can damn up rivers and control the water level in certain bodies of water. We can construct buildings that can better withstand the forces of nature. We can even predict the weather more accurately than ever before so that we can warn communities of possible danger. However, when the storms come, the waves crash, the wind blows and all of nature seems to rear its ugly head, all we can really hope to do is to try to stay out of danger. Only God can set the limits of the water and control the winds and the storms. God alone has the power to create such things and the power to set them according to His will.

In the first reading from the Book of Job, God speaks to Job from a storm while describing the creation of the seas. Perhaps Job was watching a storm rage on the Mediterranean Sea as God described how He formed the mighty waters and put them in their place. At this point in the story of Job, God is proving to Job that He, the Lord, is the one who is all just and all knowing and all powerful.

God starts out his speech by speaking from a storm. Many times is the Old Testament (but not always) God is depicted as speaking from a storm cloud. Perhaps the Old Testament writers wanted to illustrate God's power. Not only is the storm strong and powerful, but God is so powerful that He can create a storm through which He is able to speak to the main character in the story; Job is this case.

God goes on to describe the creation of the sea. He uses the imagery of the birth of a child to talk about forming the sea. Just as a birth is a new creation and a gift from God, so also the waters were given to us by the power of God. They “burst forth from the womb”, were given clouds as garments and thick darkness as swaddling bands. But God didn't just create the waters to be its own little place of chaos on earth either. He gave it limits, as He goes on to explain to Job. The image is used of doors being put is place and barred and the sea being told to come no further. This is of course all figurative speech to talk about the formation of the sea and the land in creation. It also clearly shows that God is the one who is in charge.

The Gospel for today relates the well known story of the calming of the storm. This takes place on the Sea of Galilee. Now, they call it a sea in Israel, but it is what we would call a fresh water lake. It is nowhere near the size of Lake Superior, but it is still large: about 64 square miles in size. That is about the size Lake Vermilion, but without so many islands and bays. The lake is also surrounded by mountains and hills that give the surrounding land a bit of a bowl shape. This shape really seems to help storms come in and allow winds to churn up the water and produce bad conditions on the water. That seems to be what happens for the Apostles and Jesus on the boat that day.

It seems that Jesus wants to point out two important facts with what happens here. One is that God is all powerful and able to control the sea and the wind and the storm and that as the Son of God He has that power as well. The other fact is that because God is all powerful, we need to have faith. Faith is what allows us to stay connected with God. Faith is what allows us to trust that God will be there for us, even when the forces of nature seem unbearable. If the Apostles had truly understood who was with them in the boat, if they would have had faith in who He is, they would have know that He would not allow them to perish, even while He was asleep.

We too are called to have trust and faith in Jesus and in the Father. We know from the stories we just heard and from all that we have learned about God, that He will be there for us to protect us. We should not let fear overwhelm us, but instead allow ourselves to put our complete faith in Him. We do this by continuing to pray, to follow His commandments, and by worshiping Him alone. Let us have faith in our all powerful God!