How have we been touched by the divine? How have we been taught by the word of God?

In today’s Scripture readings, people are tired, exhausted, depressed, full of complaints.  Does this sound like God’s chosen people?  These folks need to read and enjoy Pope Francis’s letter  on THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL.  They need to sing the beautiful hymn to the God of all hopefulness, the God of all joy.

In the first Scripture reading, the prophet Elijah sat under the broom tree and even prayed for death.  This was his hour of darkness.  Fleeing for his life from the evil queen Jezebel,

Elijah sought refuge and rest in the desert under a broom tree.  So broken in Spirit was Elijah that he literally prayed for death. 

Most of us find situations in life when we can identify with Elijah’s desert experience under his broom tree of despair.  Were Elijah’s times all that different from ours?  Public policy and personal lifestyles diverge dramatically from covenant commandments, exerting enormous pressure on us to be faithful.  Like Elijah, sometimes we question whether our lives have any lasting meaning, whether we have failed to make a difference in the world. 

Like Elijah, we can have a pity party for ourselves.  Personally, our family life may not be what we would like it to be.  Illness may be an unwelcomed and unplanned visitor to our life.  That right job just doesn’t to be on the horizon.

Today, Elijah, faithful to his mission but utterly discouraged, is depressed to the point of wanting to sleep and sleep.  And yet, “Touched” by the divine, Elijah’s spirit was renewed and sustained for the 40 day-and-night journey to Mount Horeb.  Elijah needed the kind of bread that only God could provide.

 We too long to be “touched” by the mystery of God’s love, to be taught by God.  The truth of our lives is God longs to touch with his amazing grace.  When we trust in God and God’s care for us, we can leave behind the broom trees of our despair and live in hope.  Hope in God, hope in the bread of life, hope in the One who prepares a weekly feast and is revealed anew in bread and wine.

Elijah’s story, and its parallel to ours, provides a fitting context in which to reflect on the Eucharist.  The people listening to Jesus in the Gospel began to complain because he claimed to be the bread that came down from heaven.  People murmured when Jesus declares that He Himself is our bread for the journey.  This murmur echoes the reaction of some to the real presence of Jesus in the mystery of the Eucharist, the mystery of God’s self-sacrificing love revealed in Jesus, and this mystery that enables diverse people near and far to live as brothers and sisters in one human family, children of one heavenly Father.

And we ask must honestly ask ourselves if we are witnesses to the profound Eucharistic mystery?

In their murmuring, they said:  “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his mother and his father?  Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven.’  Maybe that is our equivalent of the Mass becoming such a routine part of our lives.  Babies cry, readers falter, homilies cease to inspire.  We have lost the wonder.   We have lost the mystery.  The Mass is too ordinary, too routine.

As a Eucharistic people, we are fed and nourished with the bread of life and the cup of salvation; our lives are transformed by the love of Jesus within us. On the day of your child’s First Communion, there is a wonderful expectancy, the joy and hope is so apparent in our First Communicants and their families.  Indeed, this is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it.  The process of conversion is the deepening of the awe, the expectancy of being fed by the bread of life and the chalice of salvation.

If the Eucharist is only a Sunday morning thing, if there is anger and hatred in our hearts toward others, if our attention is only mixed at best, if we are hassled about many things, we have not opened our hearts to the transforming love of God revealed in the Eucharistic mystery.

To unlock the mystery of John’s Bread of Life discourse from his sixth chapter, we need to plummet the last line of today’s Gospel.  “The Bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  Jesus’ crucified body is bread?  It is hard to imagine how Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross actually feeds us.  The cross is a place of glory for Jesus.  It is on the cross that Jesus will draw all people to himself.

In the second Scripture reading, Paul writes to the Ephesians, who likewise appear to be tired, and even broken in spirit, Paul has heard of the bitterness and anger that some community members feel toward each other. The situation has apparently deteriorated and there was “shouting,” “reviling,” even “fury” among community members. In his advice in handling this tension,  Paul tells the Ephesians to “be imitators of God.”  The divine will is to love and forgive.  Bitter rancor is to be avoided; compassion and forgiveness are to become holy habits of those who profess to belong to God.

Compassionate love and forgiveness are to mark our family life, our parish life, our life as a Church.  Perhaps our political discourse and our presidential debates could be more characterized by a spirit of love and compassion for one and all.

The only way for us as disciples to be imitators of God is to center our lives in the cross of Jesus.  I absolutely love how Jesus on the cross is such a dominating part of our Church sanctuary.  May the cross of Jesus be at the center of our hearts as well.  As we now celebrate the mystery of the Eucharist, the bread that is my flesh for the life of the world, may we be immersed in the great mystery of God’s unending love for us.

The gospel reminds us that God can work wonders with the little we have if we give it all.

Today we remember the most famous picnic in religious history. Today’s Gospel recounts the account of Jesus feeding the five thousand with the multiplication of the loaves and the fish.

I invite you to envision this well known miracle story of Jesus feeding the five thousand people with five barley loaves and two fish in a new way.

Imagine that the hungry crowd of 5,000 people represents all the people we will encounter through this coming week, beginning at the dismissal rite of this Mass.  These are the people God puts in our path as we journey this week … obviously your family members, the people who have gathered for this Eucharistic celebration in our parish community, the people you work with and vacation with, the incidental people you meet during the course of the week, the likeable as well as the unlikeable people of your life.

These are all God’s people.  In some real ways, they are hungry for that which gives them life.  They may or may not be physically hungry, but they are spiritually and emotionally hungry for the fullness of life.   Lord calls us to move out of our comfort zone and do something about it.

Imagine further that we are the five barley loaves and fish that Christ distributes in the world.  Yes, if we envision the Gospel account in this way, we are all challenged to give of ourselves in the service of others.  This is our spirituality.  This is the meaning of stewardship.  Pope Francis in his homily on this miracle account says its spiritual message is more about sharing than multiplying.

Barley loaves are the food of the poor.  Let our loaves represent that which is most broken, most vulnerable within us.  Let the barley loaves stand for the risk and vulnerability involved in reaching out to others, in moving out of our comfort zone in the service of others.  Let the loaves we distribute be like the risks of faith that our parents and grandparents, many within this very parish, took as they lived the life to which Christ called them and to which Christ calls us.  Thank you for the sharing that you do in financially contributing with your offertory envelopes.  This generosity is essential to support the ministries of the parish.

But to be clear, we are called to share beyond our finances.  We are to share of ourselves in feeding the spiritually and emotionally hungry that the Lord places in our lives.  In the Gospel account, God met the hunger of the people, beginning with the generosity of one of the least among them.

Imagine also that we are the fish that are distributed.  Fish supplies vital protein, a necessary ingredient in human life.  Human persons get sick if they lack protein. The evangelist John tells us that the crowd ate as much fish as they wanted – enough to fill them up.  What parts of us can we distribute this week that will fill others up?  Especially let us think of those whose plate and cup need filling.  This could be reaching out to a disliked person at work or a separated family member.  Such distribution of ourselves represented by the fish, like the barley loaves,   requires a great risk of faith.  Yet God calls to be such instruments of God’s mercy in the lives of others.

In the words of the Holy Father, the Church of the Holy Spirit is to be a Church of Mercy.  As we are fed and nourished in the mystery of the Eucharist and in our prayer in Eucharistic Adoration, we are to share the giftedness we have been given.  We are to share our five barley loaves and two fish so that the Lord’s reveals His love to the hungry through our generosity.  The Lord is merciful to us so that we can be merciful to others.

This Gospel miracle account is good news because it tells that God is concerned about people who hunger.  It is good news because it reminds us that God can work wonders  with the little we have if we are willing to give it all.  It is good news because it reminds us that with God in our midst, we can always make a banquet out of what seems to be pretty poor fare.

We need to pay attention to the physical needs of people but this means much more than an active tithing committee that doles out tons of money.  In the Gospel account, there is more here than just a great number of hungry people being wondrously fed and satisfied.  Jesus is gathering with the hungry in the context of a shared meal, not only to feed and to be fed but to enter into covenant with all those present.  Here Jesus sets an example for those who follow him in ministry.  Our task is not simply to dole out food but to take, bless, give thanks and share our food together with the hungry and the poor, thereby sealing our relationship with them.  We are to offer nourishment as well as commitment, food as well as fellowship.

The true miracle is not the multiplication of loaves and fish, but the multiplication of God’s grace.  The God who is the source of all life offers us the possibility of participating in the divine life by our sharing with others our five barley loaves and two fish.

When Jesus and the disciples ate together with the crowds who had gathered that day by the Sea of Galilee, they were announcing by their sharing that a new relationship was being established between Jesus, the disciples and all the hungry whom they fed.

Moreover, the meal of barley loaves and fish by the Sea of Galilee anticipated another even more significant meal that Jesus would host with his own.  This meal would remember the gift of himself on the cross and the covenant made with sinful humankind through his blood.  That meal would celebrate the union in love that believers would forever thereafter enjoy with God, with Jesus, with one another, in the Spirit.

The bread we receive from the hand of God is more than mere barley loaves.  It is the Eucharistic bread of full life, life in all its dimensions, life in Christ.

Does emotional baggage weigh you down?

In today’s first Scripture, Amos was a most reluctant prophet.  God called him through the high priest Amaziah.  Amos initially resisted God’s call saying he was a simple shepherd.  He did not have any qualifications.  God had seen something in the prophet that he did not see in himself.

I wonder what God sees in each one of us as we are called to evangelize – to be spirit-filled evangelizers.  As we resist God’s call like Amos, my hunch God sees something in us.  May we heed the words of the psalmist and listen to what God proclaims to us.

In the Gospel, Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits.  He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no food, no sack, no money in the belts.”

In this Gospel, Jesus’ mission becomes the mission of the Twelve -- and our mission.  Jesus’ instruction to the Twelve are his instructions to us as well.

A key word in the commission of Jesus to his apostles is baggage.  What is our baggage?  Jesus is calling us to a Gospel simplicity -- possessions are not to weigh us down or to keep us from being dependent on God’s providence.

In the first week of May, 42 of us pilgrims walked 70 miles of the El Camino in Northern Spain to the great Cathedral of St. James in Santiago.  This pilgrimage challenged us to a simplicity of lifestyle.  We had no extra baggage.  The El Camino is a wonderful metaphor for the pilgrimage of life.  Extra baggage can give us the illusion of independence but what it does is it keep us from relying more fully on the grace of God.

At first glance, the Gospel seems to be referring only to physical baggage.  As the airlines charge a bit extra for additional baggage, Jesus is saying that that baggage can give us a false sense of trust and make us less reliant on our real source of energy -- the grace of God.

I would have also consider the emotional baggage that can too easily weigh us down and keep from a simplicity of lifestyle Jesus calls us to.  This isn’t the baggage that you can pay a little extra and have it checked so you don’t have to worry about it when traveling.

What is your baggage?  What emotional baggage do you carry around that is not of the missionary spirit Jesus calls us to?

n  Hurts from a significant relationship.

n  Judgments you make about other people

n  Fears that keep you confined to a safe comfort zone.

In praying over this Gospel, all of us need to do an inventory of emotional baggage that weighs us down.  We need to pray for the grace of healing memories that keep us from being more free?

We need to let go of any baggage that keeps us from recognizing the dignity of the person in front of us. Theodore Roosevelt said:  “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”  Pope Francis comes to mind as he now journeys in South America.  Pope Francis cares about the sick, the young, and the elderly.  He shows himself to be a man of God.

The commission of Jesus to his apostles tells them what not to bring but also what they are to bring in announcing the Good News of the Gospel.  Jesus sent them out two by two.  They were not   to be lone rangers.  They were to companion one another on the journey and be companioned by others.

Jesus has not sent us alone.  Jesus has given the community of the Church of the Holy Spirit.  We are meant to rely on one another so as not to be distracted by our belongings, by our stuff.  Many of us have more stuff than we need.  I count myself in this number.  Our stuff can certainly be a distraction from the ministry of evangelizing.

Jesus wants his disciples to rely on one another rather than vast and mighty possessions.

A story is told among the peoples of South India about a wealthy landowner who had four very quarrelsome sons.  Jealous of one another, they were constantly at odds, much to the chagrin of their father.  When he sensed his death was near, the father called his sons and divided his property among them.  They he called for some sticks to be brought, tied tightly in a bundle, and told each of the sons to try to break the bundle.  Not one could do it.  Then, the father asked for the sticks to be taken out of the bundle.  “Try now,” he said, and with little effort, they could break each single stick.  Thus the father taught the brothers that strength comes from unity:  United they would stand, but divided, each would fall.

Jesus gives us the same message.  Our strength in proclaiming the Gospel comes when we are a community of faith with the same mission.  Yes, each of us has our own uniqueness, our own spirituality, and our own craziness.  But we will discover the life of the Risen Christ when we come to come together as a community of faith to the Eucharistic table to be fed and nourished as the Table of the Lord.

Sometimes we come to know God where we least expect.

Have you enjoyed your celebration of the Fourth of July weekend?    I commend you for making this Celebration of the Eucharist a spiritual moment in your holiday weekend.  In the celebration of Holy Mass, we are giving thanks to the Lord our God for the blessings we enjoy as a family and as a nation.

What are the other dimensions of our holiday weekend?  Perhaps a round of golf, a family cookout, participation in the town parade, watched some fireworks, reflected in gratitude on the blessings we enjoy as a nation, or been conscious of those who are hungry and perhaps have not experienced the joy of a family outing?  Have these parts of your weekend been God moments as well as this participation in the mystery of the Eucharist?

The Scripture readings today invite us to experience God moments where we least expect.  In the Gospel today, when Jesus returned to his home town of Nazareth to preach in the synagogue, the people who knew him best responded with disbelief.   They said:  “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother James and Joses and Judas and Simon?”

By way of parenthesis, it was customary in the time of the evangelist to refer to close relatives as brothers and sisters.

As far as the hometown folks of Nazareth were concerned, Jesus was too local to be important.  As one sage puts it, “an expert is someone who tells you everything you already know but comes from of town and is carrying a brief case.”  Jesus should be home making tables like his dad, instead of preaching in synagogues and working miracles and casting out demons. 

A question for our reflection is whether our preconceived notions of Jesus hinder us from recognizing his presence in the circumstances of our life.  The people of Jesus’ time might expect a word of God from the high priest in Jerusalem temple, but not from a carpenter, not from Nazareth.  What we believe in the mystery of the Incarnation is that God is not an expert from heaven with a briefcase.  Rather God is to be found in our neighbor, our friend, our hometown wisdom.

To go back to my original question, what have been your God moments during this holiday weekend?  In your family outing, has this been a spiritual experience for you?  I can tell you holding my red-headed grandniece Kiera Grace in my arms was an inspiring God moment for me.  She radiates the presence of God in my heart.

May you find the presence of God in those you know and love so deeply?

St. Paul in the second Scripture provides us with another deep insight in experiencing God where we least expect.

Paul writes:  “A thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.  ‘Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’  Paul then said, for the sake of Christ, ‘when I am weak, then I am strong.’”

Certainly anyone who knows much about the life of St. Paul would not view him as a weak man.  This is the man who, through his strong faith, puts his life in jeopardy constantly.  He endured imprisonment and shipwrecks.  Yet, he admits to having weaknesses.

There is something humiliating in admitting one’s weakness.  Pope Francis is a wonderful example to us on the strength of St. Paul.  In his first description of himself as our Pope, Francis humbly says:  “I am a sinner.”  The message of this scripture passage is that recognizing and admitting our shortcomings is essential for us to have the strength Paul demonstrates.

The reason St. Paul finds strength in his limitations is because he is aware that the Lord will provide the power needed in the midst of those deficiencies.  Paul’s life is God-centered.

However, note that Paul’s first prayer was that his thorn in the flesh would be removed so that he might be a better preacher of the Gospel.  So too, it is for us, we pray that we finally overcome the sins we have been confessing all of our lives.  We finally want to get it right and prove that we have the will power to live the kind of life we can be very proud of.

Yet, conversion happened for Paul happened when he switched gears.  Instead of praying that his thorn of the flesh would be removed, he boasted of his weakness.  Paul then said:  “For the sake of Christ, when I am weak, then I am strong.”

How would that work for us?  Can you imagine yourself boasting of your weakness?  And then say:  “When I am weak, I am strong.”

What success have you not achieved that is very important to you?  What would you like to give your children but are unable to?  What illness or handicap or addiction are you dealing with? What loss leaves an emptiness in your life?  What secret is too vulnerable for you to share with others?

These I suggest are your thorns in the flesh?   How can we embrace the virtue of humility and confess our shortcoming and acknowledge our need for God’s grace in our life?  This path, I would suggest, is your journey of conversion.

As a nation as we reflect on the recent decision of our Supreme Court that recognizes the validity of the civil marriage of two people of the same sex.  The Supreme Court has ruled that two persons of the same sex have a constitutional right to marry each other.

It is important to note that the Catholic Church has an abiding concern for the dignity of gay persons.   The Church extends support and love to all families, no matter their circumstances, recognizing that we are all relatives, journeying through life under the careful watch of a loving God.

But It is most important to note that the Supreme Court’s redefinition of civil marriage has no bearing on the Catholic Sacrament of Marriage, in which the marriage of man and woman is a sign of the union of Christ and the Church.  We continue to uphold the traditional concept of marriage that is written in our human hearts and confirmed by the Word of God.

Going back to today’s Scriptures, our God is to be found in our neighbor, our friends, our family, and even in the midst of the struggles and crosses of life.

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.