Jairus' daughter can be found in the children in Haiti and the children in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the last couple of Sundays we have noticed that a theme that runs through Mark’s Gospel is the tension we live in between fear and faith.  In difficult life situations, sometimes our faith slips into fear and a lack of trust.  You will recall from last Sunday’s Gospel the disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee panicked dealing with a sudden storm.  In a somewhat hostile tone, they awoke Jesus and asked if he was not concerned for their safety.  Sometimes in life situations as we deal with illness, rockiness in relationships, and even death, we can lose our grip in trusting God’s plan for us.  The grace we seek in vulnerable life situations is to hold on tightly to the lifeline of faith Jesus offers us.

This week’s Gospel speaks of the healing of two women.  It tells two different stories that are woven into one.  They both involve women in crisis.  We don’t know them by name, just by their needs.

There is the woman, really a girl of 12 years of age who is near death, struck down by an unknown illness, driving her father to extremes in his desperate search for help in going to Jesus.  Jairus risks being ridiculed and risks missing the last precious minutes in his daughter’s life.  When the news of his daughter’s death arrives, Jesus preaches the shortest sermon of his career.  He simply says:  “Do not fear, but believe.”  That sermon Jesus preaches to us as well who suffer from those human conditions in which we cannot control.  Do not fear but believe.

When Jesus arrived at the house of Jairus, he put the crowd outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.  He took her by the hand and said to her:  “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”

Imagine ourselves as the little girl and Jesus taking us by our hand and telling us to rise and live:  “You who believe, and you who believe and sometimes don’t believe much of anything, and you who would give almost anything to believe if you could.  "Get up,” Jesus says, all of you, all of you!  Jesus gives life not only to the dead but also to those of us who are only partially alive…who live much of our lives closed to the wild beauty and the miracle of things, including the wild beauty and the miracle of every day we live and even the miracle of ourselves.   This is the power of the healing stories of Jesus – the power of new life, new hope, new being.  Whether we take notice or not, miracles happen around us every day, and every single breath we take.

May we value life as deeply as the cancer survivors we know value life.  Instead of being caught up in how bad things are because of money worries, may we hear the words of Jesus spoken to us:  “Talitha cum.”  Get up and live.  Instead of regretting we are not someplace else, may we hear the words of Jesus.  “Talitha cum.”  Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves because of some illness or setback, may we hear the healing of Jesus being spoken to us.  In deep gratitude, enjoy the blessedness and giftedness of this day and make a difference in someone’s life as a way of sharing your giftedness with people in need.  Make sense?  Our life really, really is a gift of God.

As we pray over today’s Gospel, may we be reminded that Jairus’ daughter lies dying today in little girls jeopardized by illness, lack of food and water and the necessities of life, the safety and the security they deserve.  Jairus’s daughter can be found in the children of Haiti, the children who live in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the children in need who live in this the wealthiest nation on the planet.  What sort of miracle would it take for us to transform the world’s systems, and the hearts of its people, so that all children in need can rise up to new life?    Yes, we are overwhelmed by the suffering of children around the world.  We may feel overwhelmed and helpless.  Yet, there can be no doubt that these children are very much the concern of God.  The question we need to ask ourselves is whether they are outside of our concern.  Rather, we pray that the concerns of God are very much our concerns as well.

We need to be able to see as God sees.  As in the case of the woman who been afflicted hemorrhages for twelve years, Jesus did not see an unclean woman with uncontrollable bleeding, he saw a beloved daughter of God who is suffering.  May we too see in those who are suffering God’s beloved sons and daughters.

And in our suffering, may we hold to our spiritual identity as did this woman.  Her deeper spiritual identity gave her the courage to reach for God’s love as it was manifesting itself in Jesus.  God’s love is for God’s children, and she is one of God’s children.  This is her faith.  She can go now in peace. 

She touched the clothes of Jesus and was healed.  We too are to act as Jesus did.  Part of our being a Christian is to touch the lives of others.  By touching the lives of others, we are giving life to others. Like Jesus, we are called to touch others – even to the point of going beyond our cultural barriers.  We are called to choose life.

Jesus is here today, and you have a chance to touch, not only his clothes, but his very body.  This is what we are privileged to do in the Eucharist.  Let us put our heart and soul into that privilege.

For us as well, it is our faith that we are God’s children and we can hold on tightly to God’s love and go now in peace.

WHO IS THIS?
WHO IS THIS THAT EVEN THE WIND AND SEA OBEY?
WHO IS JESUS IN MY LIFE?
Does your faith in Jesus affect the way you live your life in what you say and do?
Who is Jesus for you in the midst of the storms of your life?

In the first scripture reading, Job suffers great calamities – the death of children, destruction of property, and debilitating illness.  He asks the question WHY in the sense why do good people endure such hardships in life?  That is our question as well.  God speaks to Job and asks him to trust in God when we don’t understand why bad things happen to good people.

The Job reading prepares for the Gospel.  The disciples were traveling in a boat on the Sea of Galilee that seems unequal to the weather it faces.  And so, a violent storm are and the waves came crashing in over the side of the boat.  The disciples were in a state of panic fearing for their lives.

That boat on the Sea of Galilee symbolizes ourselves and our Church as we seem overwhelmed by the storms of life?  The storminess on the Sea of Galilee represent all those situations in life that cause us to be fearful.

The disciples were concerned about the inaction of Jesus who was asleep in the back of the boat.  From the disciples’ perspectives, Jesus wasn’t getting it.  “Houston, we have a problem.”  The disciples wanted immediate action from Jesus. The disciples had lost the confidence of their prayer life and the question they asked took on the tone of a hostile accusation:  “Teacher, don’t you care about the crisis we are facing?

 Can we identify with the fear of the apostles about the seeming absence of Jesus at times in our life?  In what situations do we lose the confidence of prayer and resort to fear and anxiety?  When it comes to the health of our children, when it comes to a break in a significant relationship, when it comes to job pressure, money pressures, when it comes slipping into fear and depression, do we wonder whether the boat we are in can withstand the storms of life?

For the first disciples and for us who also are disciples of the Lord Jesus, Jesus calls us back to our true center with two tough questions:  What are you terrified?  Do you not yet have faith?

I invite you to consider the temptations of your life as the violent squall and the surging sea that threaten us and make us fearful.  When we’re insulted, it’s like being buffeted by winds?  When we’re angered, it’s like being tossed about by waves.  When we’re insulted, our natural instinct is revenge.  But revenge produces an even worse situation – shipwreck.  Consider temptations as windy squalls and surging seas.

In these situations of fearfulness, do what the disciples did.  Wake us Jesus who is asleep in our hearts.  Then like the wind and sea, we are called to quiet down and be still and trust that Jesus who is the master of the sea and the waves is the Lord and Savior of your life.

May our daily prayer invite Jesus to  calm the storms of life we are facing and trust that Jesus is awake and knows very well that we are God’s beloved.

What will it take to convert our fears and anxieties to trust and faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior?

Psychiatrists tell us that toxic fear and worry is a disease of the imagination.  Fear robs us of the inner peace we seek.  It keeps us from enjoying the present moment.  How much of our lives is controlled by the fear of what might go wrong?

The very first words out of the mouth of the angel Gabriel when he speaks to Mary are:  “Do not be afraid.”  Scripture scholars tell us those four words are repeated 365 times in the Scriptures.
Why so much attention to the single emotion of fear?  Fear cripples our ability to become transformed – which is the whole purpose of the Gospel and of the coming of Jesus Christ into our anxiety-ridden world.  Jesus is focused:  we cannot move forward in faith until we have learned how to deal with our fears.

In his newly released encyclical, Laudato Si:  On the Care of our Common Home, Pope Francis describes our earthly pilgrimage as journeying towards the Sabbath of eternity, the new Jerusalem, our common home in heaven.  Quoting his patron’s famous and lovely hymn praising God through “Brother Wind” and “Sister Water,”  Pope Francis bids us imitate St. Francis of Assisi’s graced ability to see all of nature as a wondrous book in which God speaks to  us and permits us to glimpsed God’s infinite beauty and goodness.  Pope Francis calls to be good stewards of God’s creation.

May we praise in the beauty of all of creation, and may we trust in God in dealing with the fears and storminess of life.  The Sea of Galilee is a gift of God to us for its beauty, and the storminess of the sea is our challenges to convert the fears of life into trust in His abiding presence in our life.  Like Job

The Gospel calls us to mindful of God’s faithfulness towards us but also of our obligation to come to the aid of others sailing fearfully through stormy waters who may appreciate the compassionate care and presence of a calming friend and a fellow traveler.

The kingdom of God is like,,,

The kingdom of God is like.    Jesus often used this expression in speaking about the kingdom of God, the reign of God.  Then Jesus told us parables to explain the mystery of the Kingdom  of God.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus told two parables drawn from agriculture which was very familiar to the people Jesus was talking to.

In today’s parables, our focus is drawn to seeds and how they grow.  The farmer sows the seeds, and miraculously they grow. 

The Bauman’s should give this homily, not by self, don’t you think.  They understand the science and the beauty of the growth of seeds far better than I.

The first parable is sometimes called the “Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly.”  “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God:  it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.

The message for us is in the Kingdom of God, God is in charge.  God gives the growth.

In the second parable, the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.  But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”

The message is there is a mustard seed planted in the heart of each one of us on the day of our baptism.  It is the life of Christ Jesus that is within us.  This mustard has incredible potential to become within us the wellspring of eternal life.

A most important message is we must never forget who the sower is, whose the seed, and whose the gift of amazing grace.   Yes it is God who gives the growth.  As St. Paul in the second reading, we walk by faith, not by sight.

A couple of examples.

St Therese of Lisieux, the little flower.  She did not see herself to be the mighty rose but just a mere little sun flower, a mustard seed if you will.  Her mantra was simply to do little things with great love.  For Therese,  all is grace.  We can be assured the grace of God is at work in the most insignificant of ways.  St Therese is known as one of the great doctors in the history of the Church but she saw herself as a little flower, a mustard seed but what she is all is grace. 

In the simple ways that you serve and help and love in your family like, like Therese, do little things with great love and believe that all is grace.  The grace of God is present to you 24/7.

Another example:  the simple life of Jorge Mario Brogolio, this humble Argentinian who we probably never heard of three years ago.  The mustard seed of this simple, humble man has become Pope Francis who has exercised such a Christ-like leadership in the Church.  Who would have thought???  Pope Francis opened himself up to the plan of God for his life.

What of the mustard seed of the Church of the Holy Spirit?  We could wish for more income, more parishioners, more staff, a Catholic school and so on and so on.

Rather than feeling sorry for ourselves, we are called as a faith community to keep scattering seeds on the land as is suggested in the Gospel parables and to trust that God is in charge.  That God gives the growth.  We are celebrating our parish golden jubilee this year.  I can assure you that if we keep scattering the seeds of faith on the ground in Webster, in Penfield and we trust that God gives the growth.  When we celebrate our 100^th anniversary, this mustard will become the largest of bushes.

Do you know the expression:  Ecclesia Semper Reformanda.   The church is always in need of reform.  The Lord continuously calls to conversion, to die to ourselves a bit more so that we can more fully live in Christ Jesus.   The mustard seed is an annual, that is to say, needing constant renewal each year.  This annual need of renewal  is true of ourselves individually and, of course, of ourselves as a parish community.

Today’s scriptures are about the mystery of growth and renewal – the seed of God’s grace and love in our hearts and in the world about us.  As we worry about the Church and whether people are practicing their faith as well as we think they should, may we always deeply believe that the mustard seed of God’s grace is within us and within all.  In ways we do not know how, may we trust that God is in charge, that God gives the growth.  By all means, we like the farmer in the parable need to plant the seed in the ground and water the seeds to provide for growth. 

The way this gets translated in our parish life is yes we need to be people  of prayer.  Daily prayer needs to be part of the rhythm of our lives.  We need to provide the very best faith formation we can for young and old alike.  We need to be engaged in social  outreach that reaches out in the service of God’s poor.  This is our way of planting the seed of God’s grace and watering it.

But may we leave the results to God.  God will  give the growth perhaps  in ways beyond our understanding.  But it is God who is in charge.

Going back to the parable of the mustard seed,  “it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”

There is an image of welcome, abundant lodging and respite.  The reign of God has room for all.  There are no prerequisites or limitations.  The birds of the sky do not indicate preferences.  Anyone coming along is welcome into the reign of God to find shade and rest.  In the Church of the Holy Spirit, there is room for all.  All are welcome.

The Eucharist -- fast food or that which satisfies our deepest human hungers?

When I make my annual retreat each year, I simply get back to the basics.  I slow down.  I seek to encounter God in stillness, in solitude.  I get plenty of sleep, eat nutritious food, and pro-actively focus both on physical and spiritual exercises.

Very simply, I eat three meals a day.  They are not rushed.  I do not eat between meals.  The food is not fast, instant or junk food.  Rather,  the food is healthy and nutritious.

I say this describing the food at the retreat house because I must confess that too often I begin my day with some coffee and skip breakfast.  Often I don’t  seem  any worse for it.  But over the long haul, clearly it is not a healthy way to live.

If skipping breakfast is relatively easy, it is also easy to neglect spiritual food.  It’s too easy to skip daily prayer and the weekly celebration of the Eucharist.  We often don’t seem any worse for the wear and tear.  But over the long haul, we can get out of touch with our deepest spiritual hungers.

Far from being a pit stop for fast food and entertainment in the journey of life, the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ is the necessary sustenance for the spiritual growth of each member of the community and for the community itself.

As we reflect on the mystery of the Sunday Eucharist, we are reflecting on the central prayer of our faith tradition.  We are part of a tradition that is nearly 2000 years old.  The Sunday Eucharist is our participation in the paschal mystery of Christ Jesus.  The Sunday Eucharist satisfies the deepest hungers of the human heart.

I suggest our deepest spiritual hungers are for Jesus’ power to love and forgive his enemies rather than embarrass and crush them.  What we hunger for is Jesus’ power to be bighearted;  to love beyond his own family, and to love poor and rich alike; to live inside of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, despite everything in life that militates against these virtues.

Left to our own will power and our own desires, we get too easily trapped in self-centeredness.  The truth of the life of all of us is that we are deeply flawed by sin.

The satisfaction of these deepest hungers comes from God and God’s love that is revealed to us in the mystery of the Eucharist.  The way we are wired is that for us to satisfy the deepest hunger of our human hearts, we need to be connected to the mystery of God’s love that is within us.  It is as a Eucharistic people, we are in to touch with the source of grace that enables us to be our best selves, the person we are called to be. 

As a Eucharistic community, we gather with an attitude of gratitude.  We gather to give, to give thanks to the Lord our God.  We give thanks because we have been fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord with a food that enables to live as Jesus lives, to love as Jesus loves, to forgive as Jesus forgives.

With great joy, we have  recently celebrated two First Communion weekends in the parish.  The spiritual joy experienced in our First Communicants and in their families is so very precious.  The ritual of our First Communion celebrations are so inspiring.  It is a moment of joy for me as a priest to give First Communion to one of our younger parishioners.  In age appropriate ways, they celebrate the life giving presence of Jesus within them.  Thanks be to God.  

  

The challenge we have as a parish community is to sustain our Eucharistic faith and joy continuously throughout the year.  Even though our First Communicants won’t  be wearing their communion dresses and suits Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, nonetheless the God whose love for us is unending continues to offer to us the Bread of Life and the Cup of salvation always.

The thing of it is with spiritual hungers; we can be spiritually hungry without being in touch with our deep hunger.  As the great St. Augustine, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are hungry until they rest in thee.

As the congregation approaches the altar and receives communion, it is as if the Church is filling up with Christ.  We are not only in union with Christ, we are in communion with all those who receive him.  The Eucharist is a community affair, not simply Jesus and me.  We are not only in union with Christ; we are in  communion with all those who receive Christ.  This is the meaning of Church.  The Church is a people  of God who are in union with Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist.  We are also a people in communion with all those who receive Christ Jesus in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is our bond of communion with Christ who cleanses us our sins and unites in marvelous communion with God and gives our dignity to be God’s beloved sons and daughters.  Further, the Eucharist binds us together with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.  We are called to the Body of Christ – the bearers of hope and love to people who are sick in body and spirit.

At the Last Supper, Jesus gathers his disciples with the context of something very old – the Passover meal – to give them something very new  -- the Eucharist.  He creates for them a new covenant.  These disciples must carry on the work of Jesus.  They will be able to do his work through the empowerment of His presence.  The Eucharist has a social dimension.  It is always an encounter of the Church, the people of God, with the powerful presence of Jesus in the new covenant of His blood.  This is why the Eucharist is so central to the life of the Church.

The Mass is our greatest prayer; we gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.  Yet it is what we do outside the Mass that also determines the genuineness of the offering we make at the altar each Sunday.  By our mutual love and, in particular, by our concern for those in need we will be recognized as true followers of Christ.  Go in peace glorifying the Lord  by our lives in all that we say and do this day and every day.