19th Sunday Year A

See Commentary on Matthew 14: 22-33 in Matthew 14:22-36


Homily 1 - 2005

At this time of year, for two weekends, right around Australia, Catholic communities like your own are praying for more priests and nuns, asking God to urge more people to step forward and take on the ministry of priesthood and religious life. My being here this weekend may seem a good illustration of the need. There is no one around at the moment for the bishop to send here, unless he were to move someone from where he is now. You would be set up, but another parish would be left without a priest. You might even consider yourselves a bit like in today’s Gospel: you’re facing straight into a head wind, the sea is rough. Frankly the whole scene is scary. And if your own plight looks like being resolved after Christmas, the diocese as a whole seems to be going nowhere. It’s wild and dark out there, and daybreak seems a long way off. So, let’s pray – scream out to God!

It’s interesting, though! Nowhere in the Gospels, indeed in the whole New Testament, is there ever a suggestion that I am aware of that we should pray for more priests. There is that passage where Jesus says: The harvest is ripe but the labourers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest. But Jesus was not talking about priests. That is about you. You are the ones called to bring in the harvest. You, the laity, are the ones present and active in the world at large, charged to shape it according to the mind and the heart of God.

I don’t know about yourselves, but I see that as by far the greatest priority at the moment. We need a Church on its toes, alert and responsive, eager to make known and practical Jesus’ plan for the world as the Kingdom of God. One catch is that, like Peter, we find the force of the wind frightening and disheartening. Even the Church as we know it seems to be creaking at the seams! People are dropping out like flies. We seem to have lost a whole generation (or, more accurately, whole generations). They aren’t so much hostile, just not interested! What’s the answer?

Well, we can’t make choices for others. We can wish others were different, but we can directly influence only ourselves. So, what about ourselves? Are we all vibrant followers of Jesus, casting fire on the earth, spreading his word of  compassion, mutual respect, non-violence, love, even (perhaps especially) of enemies? We are living at a time when so many are getting carried away by intolerance, military solutions to terrorism, survival of the fittest in an economic and social system where the poor get ground down even further, and in a world where millions die unnecessarily of hunger  each year.

I wonder if we would have more people wanting to be priests and religious if our local Catholic communities gave the impression that they were passionately committed to making our world a better place for all, where we all passionately believed in a God who is Father of all, and who asks us to see each other as members of the family, brothers and sisters of each other, realistically responsive to each one’s needs. Perhaps the seeds of vocations need a truly fertile soil.

I even wonder at times whether God is already calling enough people to be priests and nuns, but we are prepared to consider only the ones who are unmarried, and male, are professionally-educated and available for fulltime ministry.

It is a complex issue. Let’s pray by all means; let’s pray tirelessly. But let our prayer be a listening, discerning prayer. The prospects facing us may seem as scary as ghosts. But it could be that Jesus is out there in the dark - of all things, striding over the waves - and we don’t recognise him! Does it have to be Peter alone who checks him out? Let’s make of ourselves a vibrant Church and see what happens.


Homily 2 – 2008 

You might remember how last week’s Gospel started: When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death, he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. It didn’t work! Thousands of people beat him to the place, so he finished up busily healing their sick, and then feeding them – a crowd of thousands. Today’s Gospel takes up from there: after sending the crowds away, Jesus went up into the hills by himself to pray. He wanted space and time – space where he could be alone, and time when he could be with his Father.

What happened when he was alone with his Father? Was it something like what was described in today’s First Reading: Elijah, alone on the mountain of God, standing with his back to the cave, waiting for God to pass by? After Elijah had witnessed a fierce cyclone, earthquake and fire, the reading goes on: …There came the sound of a gentle breeze.  (Other translations put it slightly differently: … the sound of a gentle whisper, or, more puzzling, but more accurate, … the sound of sheer silence.) And we’re told: Elijah covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. With face covered, seeing nothing, he stood immersed in the sound of sheer silence. I wonder if that, too, is what Jesus’ prayer was: seeing nothing, immersed in the sound of sheer silence.

There are lots of ways of praying. My own preferred way of praying is to sit (unlike Elijah, who stood), eyes closed, and simply to be in the presence of God. It is a form of praying with a long Christian tradition. The vivacious, sensate Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila, spoke about prayer as: “gazing upon God present within us”. I go along with God present, present within me, in the deep core of my own being. I believe that. But I do not see anything - there is nothing to gaze upon. If I listen, all I hear is the sound of sheer silence….  So, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, I simply seek to be in the presence of the unseen, unheard God, who I believe is present within me, and who basically loves me.

The aim of the prayer is simply to seek to empty the mind, to think of nothing, and just to be with God - all the while, repeating a brief mantra to keep the attention from wandering. In a sense, I never succeed. My imagination is like a thousand monkeys. It fills with memories of past happenings or fears or worries or desires or plans for the future.  In fact, the here and the now, the present moment, is desperately slippery – the time of prayer seems to be more a constant and steady… becoming aware of my distractions, gently letting go of them, and patiently bringing myself back to the sheer, empty silence of the present moment.

Does praying like this achieve anything? Its purpose is not to achieve anything, other than to stand open and honest before the mystery that is God. But there is a hope, all the same, a desire that keeps on coming up: the hope that, by being simply available to God, getting myself out of the way, letting go of my ego and its addiction to control, I might make myself less cluttered so that God may do in me, do with me, whatever God wants – and that, I hope, is to share with me the vision and the heart of Jesus.

After sending the crowds away, Jesus went up into the hills, by himself, to pray.


Homily 3 – 2011 

It can be hard to say “Sorry”; but, when I do, I am the one “in control”. It’s another thing to ask forgiveness. Then I give the power, the control, to the one I’ve hurt. That’s a lot more scary. And yet, I think, it is when the other forgives me, that I can make the next move from saying sorry to being sorry. Until I know I’m forgiven, it can seem there is too much to lose by admitting to myself my guilt: my self-esteem, that feeling of being at home in myself. But once I know that the one I have offended has forgiven me – truly forgiven me – I discover that there is nothing to lose... Being forgiven is so important – but it is beyond our control. And for the one who has been hurt, to forgive can seem more scary than saying sorry.

Pope Benedict, on a number of occasions now, has said sorry to victims of sexual abuse on behalf of the Church. Whatever about the Pope, I wonder if the Church – all the rest of us in the Church – have really said sorry in our own hearts. The sexual abuse by Catholic teachers and priests in our own diocese back in the 70s is in the news once more with the pending sentencing of Brother Robert Best. The sense of shame that most of us feel can really be a moment of grace, a moment to tune in to God’s thinly silent voice.  

The publicity can be an invitation to us to look again into our own hearts to see how truly sorry we are as Catholics. We regret what it has done to us – the bad publicity, the shame and ridicule, possibly the negative effects on priest numbers, the large numbers who continue to walk away from the Church. But are we genuinely sorry for what the abuse has done to the victims? to their families who love them? to the young people whose faith and trust it has undermined? Have we tried to feel their pain? And owned our powerlessness? A moment of grace.

It may be too much for victims to forgive the Church – to forgive us as Church. Can we ever, then, be free? I think we can, if somehow we can truly get hold of God’s forgiveness of us. I don’t think that is a cop-out. But we need someone to lead us beyond our own instinctive defensiveness, our spontaneous reaction to lay the blame elsewhere or to lay it too narrowly.

At the moment, so many in high places in the Vatican are blaming what they call the secularism of our age, and its influence on the perpetrators, for the spate of clergy abuse in the Western World. Not only they, but perhaps all of us, are still reluctant to seek for causes closer to home – causes to which we ourselves might contribute: for example, the generally accepted attitudes of deferring to those with responsibility in the Church, of putting us clergy on a pedestal (We like it!), of relating in the Church as superiors to inferiors, instead of as adult brothers and sisters.

Like the disciples in today’s Gospel, we have been made, reluctantly, to head for the other side; we’re heading into uncharted waters – into an uncertain future that we don’t control or understand. We’re exhausted; we’re bickering among ourselves. Where’s God? Where’s Jesus? Well, as the Gospel reminds us, he’s there – but he’s hard to recognise. Do we turn back and head for familiar territory? Do we stay in the boat? Do we try to walk on water?

Perhaps what we need to do first is to listen. Can we hear him say: Courage! It is I. Do not be afraid. It can be OK to be not in control, OK to feel without power, useless, uncertain, scared stiff. In my experience, that is the best spot to ensure I really mean it when I cry out: Lord, save me! And it is great to read that Jesus’ spontaneous, unthinking, instant response is to put out his hand at once and hold us. And, really, when we look back over our lives, it’s no surprise. He’s done it before. It’s why we’re here this morning – still dripping wet, perhaps, but all of us held by his strong arm. 


  Homily 4 - 2017

“O you of little faith”. Jesus was not talking about the disciples’ familiarity with the Catechism, but about their readiness to trust him – his sense of God and his way of life. As I pondered on the Gospel this week, trying to hear how it might be relevant to today’s world, the current discussion on euthanasia came to mind, especially as society struggles really to trust within the bleak context of a consumerist, competitive culture.

I was reading recently about a study conducted in Holland on the five principal reasons given by patients for requesting euthanasia. At the top of a list of five was "not wanting to be a burden to others". "Avoidance of pain" came a very distant fifth – although it seems to be the reason given top priority among proponents seeking to legalise the practice here in Australia.

I am not all that surprised that pain avoidance came last. People’s experience of pain is very personal, and is very much related to other factors. I remember years ago reading a book written by the eminent Jewish psychologist, Victor Frankel, dealing with his observations arising from his experience in one of Hitler's extermination camps. He noticed that people who had a sense of meaning in their lives could put up with almost any prospect of suffering, while those without meaning crumbled. He survived the awful experience because he yearned to be reunited with the wife he loved.

In a consumerist culture where pleasure, productivity and autonomy rule supreme, dying generally makes no sense, and people prefer to live without thinking of it. Where the sense of autonomy, the need to feel always in control, predominates, so-called “dying with dignity” seems to require being somehow in control of the dying process . Where productivity is idealised, becoming a financial burden on the community is dangerous; and being dependent on family, or on medical and nursing staff to meet everyday needs, seems supremely undignified.

Yet not always being in control, being in fact sometimes dependent on others, is part of being authentically human. It constitutes the essence of any genuine relationship of love. Some of you are old enough to remember Neil Diamond singing [about fifty years ago!], “He ain’t heavy; he's my brother.” It was not just cute; it was profoundly true. Love makes burden irrelevant. Burden makes love beautiful. And the correlative is perhaps even truer. “I'm not heavy. I'm his brother.” Being loved by God constitutes our dignity; being loved by others makes us aware of it.

I fear that our pleasure-prioritising culture makes it difficult for us to get in touch with love, real love. We talk about it ad nauseam – and misunderstand it profoundly. Love is pure gift. We cannot earn it, merit it, or buy it – we simply accept it. We have no control over another's genuine love for us. But for being loved to do us any good, we need to trust it, be humble enough to let it be, and learn from it. It takes time, sometimes a lifetime.  

Years ago I decided that I want my death to be, as far as I have any say in it, the most fully alive moment of my life. I believe that I can best prepare for that by letting myself be loved every moment, and by seeking to love others as well and as consistently as I can. I do not have to succeed - but I do need to be in process.

All of this, I believe, can make sense to any thoughtful person, believer or not. In addition, for believers, knowing that God loves us makes a wonderful difference – provided that we do not simply take someone else’s word for it but have allowed God to whisper it to us personally. Like Elijah who encountered God in “the sound of a gentle breeze”, we need to take the time deliberately to listen to God. We need to learn to pay attention as we pray. It is surprising how much life changes as we learn God’s language of silence.


Homily 5 -2020

God first appeared to Moses in the land of Midian, desert country near Mt Sinai, in the form of a “burning bush”. God’s later theophanies to Moses, on Mt Sinai, were generally more spectacular, accompanied by earthquakes, lightning, smoke and cloud. Today we read of God’s contact with Elijah, again in the desert of Sinai, in the form of “the sound of a gentle breeze”. I find that a highly evocative image. Other translations put it, “the sound of sheer silence”. I like that even better. Today’s Gospel presented a perhaps more intimate image. Jesus held out his hand to the terrified, drowning Peter, whispering to him, “Man of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Today we experience the departure of so many hurting, bewildered people from the Church. Their leaving is cushioned by the continuing faithfulness of people like yourselves, perhaps equally hurting and bewildered, yet hanging in. The source of my remaining in the Church would be, I think, something like the sense felt by Peter when Jesus reached out and held him. I would be surprised if you have not all intuited something similar — the kind of experience that moves you and me beyond mere knowledge of Jesus to deeper personal relationship and trust — that opens the way for him to hold us firmly, lovingly, as it were by the arm.

I am getting older. I have no idea when I shall die and, in an instant, move on to a wholly transformed experience of living. I look forward to meeting God, and experiencing directly and intensely God’s unimaginable, timeless love. These days, whenever I pray, I practise letting go of everything, letting go especially of my desire to control, and surrendering instead totally to God — still unfinished and far from perfect. Yet I am confident that Jesus will reach out to hold me by the arm, and don’t even care if he gently whispers in my ear, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”— I still trust him completely.


 

Homily 6 - 2017

This morning I want to reflect on the first of today’s three Readings.

The action happened in the middle of the ninth century before Christ, at a time when most of the kings of Israel had turned away from their earlier worship of God to worship instead the gods of their richer and more powerful neighbours.

Elijah, one of the earliest of the prophets, tried valiantly to turn them back to the original faith of Israel — but to little avail. Deeply depressed, he had withdrawn from Israel and journeyed on foot to Mount Sinai — where Moses had received from God, among other things, the Ten Commandments; where Moses had slowly shaped the Hebrew slaves, newly escaped from Egypt, into an organised people; and where the people had come to know God and to profess their readiness to enter into a formal Covenant with God, despite repeated relapses into faithlessness.

It was a watershed moment for Elijah, and would be so, in fact, also for the Israelite people.

Like Moses before him, Elijah had a memorable encounter with God while up the mountain of Sinai. Moses’ encounters with God had repeatedly been accompanied by earthquakes, destructive winds, frightening flashes of lightning, thunder claps and billowing clouds of smoke. Not surprisingly, the people had assumed that their God was a supremely powerful, unpredictable and terrifying God; and over time this conviction had taken deep root in their collective psyche. Their instinctive sense of God was that of a God to be feared more than to be loved.

It was time for God to lead Elijah more deeply into the mystery of the Godhead. As we heard this morning in the First Reading, God instructed Elijah: “ … to go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. Then the Lord went by. There came a mighty wind, so strong it tore the mountains and shattered the rocks … But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there came the sound of a gentle breeze. And when Elijah heard this, he covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.”

“The sound of a gentle breeze”. Another reputable translation reads: “The sound of sheer silence”. No matter — both are ideal metaphors to point to the mystery at the heart of God.

Many people in our Church today are deeply disturbed at what has been happening. Older ones not long ago were puzzled that younger ones had seemed to have lost interest and faith in the Church. Nowadays they are puzzled that many of their contemporaries seem likewise to be heading in the same direction. A former attitude of fear of God seems no longer to ensure their obedience. Whatever the modern equivalents of the mighty wind, the earthquake, the lightning and thunder that no longer motivated Elijah’s contemporaries, they no longer seem to motivate people today.

I think that what would be great for all of us to learn is to listen for the “gentle breeze” or the “sound of sheer silence” or whatever else may suit us — however we name the simple still, quiet presence to us and in us of the God who loves us. We all need to connect somehow with God personally. It won’t seem like praying. I do a lot of it myself. It is the opposite of busyness, the deliberate absence of thinking, or trying to feel or imagine God [or Jesus] — simply to be still and silent. I have learnt not to be worried if I fall asleep or become quite distracted. It is not deliberate. And through my inability to perform well when I pray, God reminds me that what matters is, as St John wrote in one of his epistles: “Not our love for God but God’s love for us”.

Thank God!!