Mark 10:45

Tag: fear

  • Encountering God

    Encountering God

    Saturday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time

    Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Peter 4:14; Matthew 10:24-33

    My family and I had the good fortune of going on a pilgrimage to Italy. The churches we visited were, to say the least, breathtaking; each in its own way a masterpiece of art and architecture. It was easy to be overwhelmed by the splendor of it all.

    While exploring one of them, I happened to look toward the main altar. A small group of people were gathered in a roped-off space. I assumed it was a tour group waiting for a talk to begin. When I looked back later, I saw that in fact it was people attending Mass. I suddenly realized that, wandering through that majestic space, I got lost in the outward beauty but forgot the deeper one. I was encountering art; they were encountering God.

    As the first reading reminded us, the prophet Isaiah also encountered God, and its effect resounds to this day. Who can hear Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory! and not think of the holy Mass? For the Mass, indeed every sacrament, is an encounter with the living God. Pope Francis made this clear when he wrote that Christ, the Incarnation, is Himself the “very method that the Holy Trinity has chosen to open to us the way of communion. Christian faith is either an encounter with Him alive, or it does not exist… We need to be present at that Supper, to be able to hear his voice, to eat his Body and to drink his Blood. We need Him. In the Eucharist and in all the sacraments we are guaranteed the possibility of encountering the Lord Jesus and of having the power of his Paschal Mystery reach us. The salvific power of the sacrifice of Jesus, his every word, his every gesture, glance, and feeling reaches us through the celebration of the sacraments.”1

    We heard in the Old Testament readings this week forebodings of this encounter. On the one hand, God said to Israel through Hosea, I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart (2:16); it is time to seek the LORD (10:12); I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks (11:4); and finally, Return, Israel, to the LORD, your God… Take with you words, and return to the LORD (14:2-3). But on the other hand, we also heard Him say that Israel made idols for themselves (8:4); their heart is false (10:2); and the more I called them, the farther they went from me (11:2).

    The pattern is clear: God seeks encounter, to share his love; we, to avoid. Why? Fear, mostly. It’s in our nature. God calls us to be holy – set apart – but we fear not fitting in. He calls us to speak truth in the open, but we are silent, fearing the challenge. He calls us to give ourselves completely to him, but we fear the loss of control. He calls us to the humility of service, but we fear giving up our pride. And where does this fear leave us?Empty, ashamed, hiding in the darkness of our sins, and afraid to open ourselves up to the all-seeing light of Christ.

    But his light is also the perfect love that drives out fear (1 John 4:18). That is why Jesus urges his disciples to become like their Master, that His love will transform us. Our encounter with the living God in every sacrament is meant to bear witness to the transformative power of His love. Why else would Jesus say, What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops (Matthew 10:27)? Aren’t the most loving words the ones so often spoken in the darkness, or whispered in our ears? The perfect love that drives out fear is the heart of our encounter with God in the liturgy, the love that is meant to evoke in us the same sense of humble self-surrender that Isaiah felt when he cried out, I am a man of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5).

    It was the loving and living word of God that cleansed him, the same one who comes to us and seeks to perfect in us the effect of that encounter: the Spirit of God who rests upon us (1 Peter 4:14), who moves us to speak in the light, to proclaim what God has whispered, and to say as Isaiah said, Here I am, send me!

    1https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/20220629-lettera-ap-desiderio-desideravi.html

  • Sheep and Shepherd: St. Augustine of Canterbury

    Sheep and Shepherd: St. Augustine of Canterbury

    1 Thessalonians 2:2b-8; Matthew 9:35-38

    During a parish mission years ago the homilist asked the congregation, “Do we live the Christian life as sheep or shepherds?” At the risk of oversimplifying, his point was that being a true follower of Christ requires us to be both. Key moments from the life of St. Augustine of Canterbury beautifully illustrate that point.

    The first occurred on the French side of the English Channel in the late 6th century. Reality had taken hold; Augustine, the leader of a group of 40 Benedictines sent by Pope Gregory the Great to re-evangelize England, learned from the locals that across those choppy waters lived not only pagan but also hostile Germanic tribes. If they landed, they stood an excellent chance of being killed.

    So at that moment, was Augustine a sheep or shepherd? We might think “sheep” when we hear that he sent men back to the Pope to ask if the mission should be abandoned. Is he a coward? Shouldn’t he obey orders no matter what? Perhaps, but perhaps it’s prudent for a sheep to pause if he thinks he’s walking off a cliff. Better still, perhaps as the shepherd of 40 missionaries it would be foolhardy to blindly go forward if the pope did not know what Augustine now knew.

    Like the balance between sheep and shepherd, the virtues are also a balance, in this case a balance between extremes. For example, courage is the virtuous balance between cowardice on the one hand and foolhardiness on the other. Knowing the balance is one thing, finding it another. We need the grace of God to do this; to face down our fear of rejection, failure, inadequacy, or harm. St. Paul knew this; in the first reading he says, We drew courage through our God to speak to you the Gospel of God with much struggle (1 Thessalonians 2:2). Augustine was graced with courage in abundance, for when he received the reply that Gregory wished them to set sail, he immediately did so.

    His courage was rewarded. They landed in southeastern England, which was ruled by King Ethelbert, a pagan but married to a Catholic. After Augustine met with him, the king allowed them to preach the Gospel to his people. A year or so later, he himself was baptized and went on to become a saint in his own right. What’s more, when Ethelbert converted, thousands of his subjects came with him.

    But a second trial remained. Although England was largely pagan, small bastions of Catholicism remained in Wales and on the western shore. The ancient remnants of Irish missionaries, these Catholics were angry that the Roman Empire had left England and abandoned them. Although Gregory wanted them reunited, Augustine was unable to do so. Some accuse him of going against the Pope’s advice, or blame him for being tactless, arrogant, unwilling to compromise, and ignorant of their culture. Did he fail as both sheep and shepherd to them?

    I think it’s truer to say that like Christ, Augustine saw them as troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). When the Good Shepherd felt pity for such a flock, he ministered to them but did not change his teaching. Similarly, Augustine may have pitied or sympathized with the Celts, but in his role as shepherd he wasn’t going to give in on doctrinal points such as the date to celebrate Easter, which these groups demanded. No good shepherd can allow the flock to set the terms for following, even if it costs his reputation and means separation. In this, Augustine was ultimately vindicated; years after his death, the Celtic Catholics were united with Rome.

    The life of St. Augustine of Canterbury reminds us that the saints did not get where they are by being either a good sheep or a good shepherd; rather, they learned and they teach us how to be both.

    As sheep, we follow Christ wherever he leads and do whatever he asks. This tempts us to focus on the unknown: where is Christ leading us and what is he asking? But these are the wrong questions. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is our trust that the God who leads us won’t abandon us, and that we are praying for the grace to be faithful, to follow him no matter what, for he always leads the way to victory. Like the saints, we’re only human; as Augustine showed, even saints are sometimes afraid. But he also showed that he was a sheep who knew his Master’s voice, and when his vicar encouraged him to keep going, Augustine’s faithfulness emboldened him to follow Christ beyond his fear. His obedience was rewarded with many converts.

    Yet we are not only sheep, we are shepherds. This may sound odd because, as the Gospel acclamation reminds us, Christ is the Good Shepherd; what’s more, if he has vested anyone with a shepherd’s staff it is the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church he established. Nevertheless, by our baptism we are anointed to the prophetic role of teacher. At the end of Mass we hear “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord;” whether by word or action, we are charged to preach the Gospel to the world. This is what Augustine did; to anyone who would listen, from kings to the lowliest peasant. No one is universally successful and Augustine lost some battles, but Christ won the war; eventually and in one of the great ironies that define the faith, England, saved by the continent, would in time send missionaries back to Europe to save it, like St. Boniface who became patron saint of Germany. None of this would have happened without the groundwork laid by St. Augustine of Canterbury, true sheep and true shepherd.

    St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us.

  • Walking on the Water: Monday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

    Walking on the Water: Monday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

    Jeremiah 28:1-17; Matthew 14:13-21

    Each evangelist has a particular view of the Apostles in his gospel. In Mark, the Apostles never seem to get it right; they constantly misunderstand or respond inappropriately. In Luke the Apostles also misunderstand and make mistakes but there is always an excuse; they were tired or stressed. Matthew is perhaps more realistic. He shows the Apostles struggling; there is tension between faith and doubt. This comes through in his telling of the storm at sea and I think it reflects things true not only of them but all of us.

    Let me point out two things about how Matthew sets the scene. First, Jesus sends the Apostles across the sea without him while he prays to his Father on the mountain. As he remains serenely at prayer a storm rages on the sea, tossing the Apostles’ boat in every direction. Second, Jesus does not come across the sea until the 4th watch of the night – some time between 3 and 6 am. In other words, he lets the Apostles get tossed around in the storm for several hours before going to them.

    We can all identify with this in our own way. Think of a time when you were under great stress, when life seemed to toss you about, when every minute seemed like an hour and the stress was more than you thought you could bear. You prayed and prayed for relief, and… nothing. How did you feel? As for myself, I would say that I felt alone; doubtful that God was ever going to help; vulnerable; tense; above all, afraid.

    Fear is perhaps what we have most in common with the Apostles. It can be paralyzing; we don’t know what to do, who to listen to, how to respond. We want to run away but we’re trapped; we can’t.

    At such times we are most susceptible to the kind of false prophet we hear about in the first reading, in our case someone who either tells us what we most want to hear or what confirms our worst suspicions and deepens our darkest fears: We’re alone; being punished; God has abandoned us, will not help us, or worst of all, is not there. It isn’t surprising that in fear the Apostles chose the worldly explanation on seeing Jesus: It is a ghost (Matthew 13:26).

    But God is truth and as Matthew has made clear from beginning to end in his gospel, Jesus is Emmanuel, God-With-Us (1:23), and will be with us always until the end of the age (28:20). So he comes, but notice how: From within the storm itself. In this we learn that God is with us not above and beyond the storms of life but deep in the midst of them. However we suffer, however we feel, we are not alone; Christ is compassion and speaks to us in that suffering. It may be the grace of long-suffering, patience, or fortitude; he does not tell us but as the Divine Physician he comes, gives us grace, and strengthens us for whatever journey he has in mind.

    Moreover, Christ does not simply appear in the storm – he calls from it:“Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27). He does this not to criticize or overpower but to give courage and to encourage; not necessarily to calm the storm raging around us but to bring calm and inner peace to the storm that rages within.

    Those who love Jesus as Peter did will do what true love does – cast aside fear and risk everything to be with the Beloved. This is one of Peter’s most endearing qualities – the recklessness of his love for Christ – and we do well to imitate it. Our Lord rewards such love; he bids Peter,“Come” (Matthew 14:29).

    Yet as St. Augustine said in his Confessions, “My weight is my love, and this it is that bears me in whatever direction I am borne” (Confessions XIII 9, 10). Although Peter did love our Lord, fear got the better of him: when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened (Matthew 14:30) and began to sink. The question is, in what direction are we borne? Let us bring that to prayer today, asking for the grace that does not allow fear to bring us down amid the storms of our life but to keep our eyes fixed on Christ, our feet on firmly with his, facing those storms from the top of the water.