NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF YEAR I
Mt.
14, 22 - 33: “Courage; it is I.”
Let me tell you the story of that beautiful
French singer, Edith Piaf. Piaf was not
her real name, but given to her by a cabaret owner who employed her. It is a
French slang for “sparrow” because she looked like one, small and a mere 90
pounds. Her first name was Edith, after the courageous British nurse who had
been killed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers to escape.
Edith Piaf’s mother, a prostitute, abandoned her in infancy; so she was brought
up by her grandmother who worked as a cook in a house of disrepute. At the age
of three she became blind but was healed by the intercession of St. Therese of
Lisieux. From that day, she always carried the image of St. Therese.
Though small of stature, she was able to
bear tremendous burdens. The man who launched her singing career was brutally
murdered, and Edith was arrested and charged as the prime suspect in the case.
She was acquitted. At the age of 19, the only child she would ever have died of
meningitis. One of her many lovers died in an air crash. She suffered through
three car accidents, several operations, and various illnesses. Though her life
was one of almost unremitting suffering and disappointment, she could think of others.
She sang for French prisoners of war during World War II, and like the British
nurse for whom she was named, she aided several prisoners to escape.
She had the extraordinary ability to
transmute her pain through her music, bringing help and inspiration to her
millions of listeners. She put her entire being into her singing. The
celebrated poet Jean Cocteau said, “Every time she sings you have the feeling
she’s wrenching her soul from her body for the last time.” Just a year before
her death in 1963, Edith Piaf sang from the top of the Eiffel Tower, on an
enormous platform that overlooked the entire city of Paris. In the final
months, she dictated her memoirs from her hospital bed. Looking back on her
life, she singled out the important role that COURAGE played in her life. She
says, “It’s true that I’ve always wanted to have courage. They say that it’s a
masculine quality. But I believe that it’s women who cope best when things are
going badly. It’s a question of habit, especially for me. My apprenticeship in
life was not particularly rosy.”
Conscious of her sins, she wanted to be like Mary Magdalene “whose many
sins were forgiven because she loved much.”
Edith Piaf’s life demonstrates once more
that the human spirit can flower in the most unpromising places. As G. K.
Chesterton once remarked, “If seeds in the black earth can turn into such
beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey towards
the stars ?”
Courage is not the same as fearlessness. It
is not the absence of fear, but the control of it. “Grace under pressure,” as
Earnest Hemingway said. Courage gets above fear; it is, so to say, fear that
has said its prayers. The great
story-teller, Robert Louis Stevenson, was always plagued by ill-health, and
though he filled his novels with exciting characters and exotic places, he was
more interested in man’s inner spirit. He said that everyone needed to possess
courage, even those who outwardly lived less adventurous lives. According to
him, the ordinary person is no less noble because no drum beats before him when
he goes out to his daily battlefields and no crowds shout his arrival when he
returns from victory or defeat.
Courage is not something we need rarely,
but what we need on a daily basis: to live, to suffer, to struggle and die.
Winston Churchill ranked courage as “the first of the human qualities, because
it is the quality that guarantees all the others.”
We too will encounter and recognise the
Lord even in the most trying and distressing situations when we cannot cope,
despite our best human resources. God may speak loud and clear in power. But
more often than not in the still small voice of an intimate personal
experience. Like Peter, we waver and hesitate when we look at the threatening
waves of difficulties, failure or opposition. It is only when we keep our gaze
steadily on Jesus, the “Unsinkable One”, in persevering prayer, that we find
new strength and an unexpected power, which can keep us in peace even in the
midst of the greatest storms and stresses of life.
Let me end with the message of the famed
aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, who understood that without courage, personal
contentment is not possible: “courage is the price that life extracts for
granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little
things.”
PRAYER:
(Ulrich Schafer)
God, here I will stand to fulfil what your
faith in me expects. I will take the desert upon myself, the absence of your
answers, your multifaceted, eloquent silence, to allow the fruit of solitude to
ripen in me as nourishment for others. I
will not run away, even when I am afraid of the endless sand, of the
senselessness; you silent one, because you are never far. Amen.
Nineteenth Sunday of Year “A”
“Take courage ! It is I.” (Mt 14, 27)
Introduction:
Life is a tough haul for many people some of the time and for some
people most of the time. This is very true for committed people trying to live
out Christian values every day. They sometimes feel they have set out in life
alone into the headwinds of poverty and pain, unemployment, injustice,
loneliness and limitation. They feel unable to make much progress. Maybe we
need to invite our Lord into our lives more realistically, asking his wisdom
and courage. We must believe that we can change; we can be better and help
others become better too.
G. K. Chesterton once
remarked, “If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what
might not the heart of man become in its long journey towards the stars?”
The Homily: “Take courage ! It is I,” said our dear Lord
Jesus to Peter as he was terrified of the swirling waters all around him, and,
mature man as he was, he cried out in fear. And Jesus assured him, “Courage,
I’m here.” As the Psalmist says, “When the Lord is near what have I to fear?” We
need to develop a deeper and deeper consciousness of the presence of the Lord.
Talking about courage.
Courage is not the same as fearlessness. It is not the absence of fear, but the
control of it. “Grace under pressure,” as Earnest Hemingway said. Courage gets
above fear; it is, so to say, “fear that has said its prayers” (General
Pershine). The great storyteller, Robert Louis
Stevenson, was always plagued by ill health, and though he filled his novels with exciting characters and exotic
places, he was more interested in man’s inner spirit. He said that everyone
needed to possess courage, even those who outwardly lived less adventurous
lives. According to him, the ordinary person is no less noble because no drum
beats before him when he goes out to his daily battlefields and no crowds shout
his arrival when he returns from victory or defeat.
The birth pangs of the modern world
were being felt in 19th. Century France. The French Revolution went true to its
anagram, “Violence run forth.” Religion was abolished and Reason was enthroned
on the altar of updated French life. It was risky to practise the faith openly,
and any priest seen in public would be tumbrel driven to the guillotine. It was
in those worst of times that the province of Lyons was blessed by the
activities of a youth, named Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney. Born in 1786 and
brought up in traditional piety, as a young lad he would gather the village
children for religion lessons which he gave himself, thereby keeping their
faith alive. He was in turn inspired by the example of loyal and courageous
Catholic parents who refused to swear allegiance to the revolutionary
hierarchy, and his own family boycotted the revolutionary priest who had
installed himself in the parish. Any brave priest available would be invited to
celebrate Mass in a barn, the windows of which would be blocked from outside by
huge stacks of hay. The chalice, cruets and missal were pulled out of the hay,
and the Lord’s Resurrection would be proclaimed for a bleeding France.
The dangers of the period only reinforced the young
John’s resolve to become a priest. But entering the seminary produced another
brace of troubles, though not of his making. He was older and more mature than
his boyish companions. He had already had apostolic experience and a taste of
army life (from which he had had a providential escape); his fellow seminarians
had none. He had wisdom; his professors expected knowledge. He was easily
misunderstood and was a figure of fun, especially when he made mistakes in Latin
grammar - which was quite often. But he stuck to his study of theology like a
soldier sticking to his guns, even though he had as much local memory as a
village donkey. That is why he flunked the final exams and the repetition, too.
His bishop did not want to ordain him. “Jean Marie,” he said, “what can I do
with you? You’re a complete ass!” “My
Lord”, replied Jean Marie, “if God could enable Samson to kill a thousand
Philistines with only the jawbone of an ass, what could he not do with a
complete ass?” The bishop ordained him, thinking probably that one more in the
diocese wouldn’t make a difference!
It
did make a difference; a great difference - to the diocese and to the
devil. Fr. John Mary Vianney was
appointed to the country parish of Ars in the district of Dardily. On the eve
of his departure for Ars, Fr. Courbon, the vicar general, told him, “There is
no love of God in that parish. Go and put some love into it.” And that he did. The people of Ars were given
over to drinking, dancing and debauchery. The Curé d’Ars blew into them like a
tornado, and like the true prophet he called them to repentance. Initially
rigorous, he often refused absolution for faults that today we would not
consider grave. Yet through him the spirit of penance spread through the land
like fire over dry stubble. Within a few years there were seemingly unending
lines at his confessional, so that on most days of the week Fr. John Vianney
had to sit up to 14 hours a day reconciling sinners. Apart from the
confessional, his fame as a preacher spread rapidly to the cities, including
sophisticated Paris. The fashionable ladies came to hear this marvellous
minister of the Word, with an eye to getting him transferred to the big city.
But John Mary Vianney had no eye for the city lights. Whenever he saw a bevy of
powdered and perfumed females in his little church, he behaved like an
unlettered bumpkin, blundering ungrammatically through his sermon. They were
shocked and stopped coming. But the simple folk kept coming from far and near, including
those from the neighbouring parishes, much to the chagrin of the parish priests
of the neighbouring parishes, who felt they were losing their parishioners and
Sunday collections. So the brother priests met in conspiracy and finally got
down to drafting a memo to the bishop with the request to have him transferred.
The memo had to go from priest to priest for signature. By some misadventure it
fell into the hands of Fr. John Mary Vianney. He read it placidly and promptly
added his signature to it!
His
pastoral successes were not without their hard side. The grace of
reconciliation of long hardened sinners, the miracles of feeding the children
in his “La Providence” orphanage, his ripostes in the verbal duels with the
devil were the fruit of long hours of prayer and penance. More than subsisting
on boiled potatoes most of his life, his penance was provided by the insults
and calumnies of certain people and the harrowing assaults of the devil that
deprived him of much needed sleep. He often reminded himself and others:
“Everywhere there is the cross; we are made in the form of a cross.” But God’s
glory was coming through, and the demonic accents became more and more
high-pitched as penitent after penitent fell on their knees to make their
confession. Finally, the devil also made his “confession” by screaming,
“Vianney, eater of potatoes, if there were three people like you in this world
my kingdom would come to an end!” While
the saint’s body lies sweetly composed in the Seminaire Jean Marie Vianney in
Ars, visitors can view his house and the burns on the bedroom walls and
curtains caused by the devil. Now that’s a life of courage, “si vous plais.”
We too will encounter and recognise the Lord even in
the most trying and distressing situations when we cannot cope, despite our
best human resources. God may speak loud and clear in power. But more often
than not in the still small voice of an intimate personal experience. Like
Peter, we waver and hesitate when we look at the threatening waves of
difficulties, failure or opposition. It is only when we keep our gaze steadily
on Jesus, the “Unsinkable One”, in persevering prayer, that we find new
strength and an unexpected power, which can keep us in peace even in the midst
of the greatest storms and stresses of life.
Courage is not
something we need rarely, but what we need on a daily basis: to live, to
suffer, to struggle and die. Winston Churchill ranked courage as “the first of
the human qualities, because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.”
The
famed aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, who went down with her aircraft over the
Pacific and was never found again, understood that without courage, personal contentment is not possible:
“courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that
knows it not, knows no release from little things.”
PRAYER: (Ulrich Schafer)
God, here I will stand to
fulfil what your faith in me expects. I will take the desert upon myself, the
absence of your answers, your multifaceted, eloquent silence, to allow the
fruit of solitude to ripen in me as nourishment for others. I will not run away, even when I am afraid of
the endless sand, of the senselessness; you silent one, because you are never far. Amen.
19th Sunday of the Year A
Introduction:
How close are you to Jesus? Would you be ready to do the impossible if he asked you? Does your faith tell you, that you can trust totally in Jesus?
1st Reading :(1Kgs. 19, 9:11-13)
Elijah discovers God while in a cave on the top of the mountain
2nd Reading (Rom. 9: 1-5)
St. Paul wishes that all his Jewish brethren were saved by accepting Jesus.
Gospel: Mitt. 14:22-23 Walking on the Water
We profess to put our faith in and follow a man who could feed 5000+ people with five loaves and two fish.
We profess to put our faith in a man who could even walk on water!
FAITH:
As defined in the Confirmation Catechesis is A TWO WAY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOD AND US . It is abandoning ourselves into the hands of the Risen Lord. It means putting our trust in his power and his goodness.
How should we behave when our faith is endangered?
If you do not have God in your life, then you make up the rules as you go along You lose respect for others, for their properties, for their lives and you also gradually lose respect for yourself. Now if you DO accept the fact of God in your life how do you relate to Him?
Is it just sufficient to say objectively that I believe there is a God? Is that sufficient for a relationship that I know in my mind that there is a God and everything will fall into place? What more should I do in my life to express his existence in my life and my relationship with Him?
The first step is to search for a quiet place to allow me to hear God’s voice. The second step is, I have to then acknowledge the presence of God in my life. The third step is I have to put my self into his Hands. This is our reflection today. It is very important in whose hands you put self into, it can change and transform your life completely.
Sometimes the value of a thing or person depends on whose hands its in.
A basketball in my hands is worth about $19.
A basketball in Michael Jordan's hands is worth about $33 million.
It depends on whose hands it's in...
A golf club is almost useless in my hands.
A golf club in Tiger Wood's hands is a 4 Major Golf Championship
It depends on whose hands it's in...
A rod in my hands will keep away a wild animal.
A rod in Moses' hands will part the mighty sea.
It depends on whose hands it's in...
A sling shot in my hands is a toy.
A slingshot in David's hands is a mighty weapon.
It depends on whose hands it's in...
Two fish and five loaves in my hands is a couple of fish sandwiches.
Two fish and five loaves in Jesus' hands will feed thousands.
It depends on whose hands they're in...
Few Nails in my hands might produce a table or a chair.
Three Nails in Christ Jesus' hands will produce salvation for the entire world.
It depends on whose hands they're in...
AS YOU SEE NOW, IT DEPENDS ON WHOSE HANDS YOU ARE IN –
Not one of us in our right minds would consciously and deliberately jump into the hands of drugs, alcohol, gambling, pornography, marital infidelity or gossip. Those who have done so are experiencing hell on earth.So be warned and put your concerns, your worries, your
fears, your hopes, your dreams, your relationships and your family and yourself in God's Hands – For remember, it all depends on whose hands you are in.
Elijah won back the faith of the Israelites by challenging the prophets of Baal . He ran away to save his life from Ahaz and Jezebel who were trying to murder him. Being fed by God through ravens with bread and meat he walked in the desert 40 days and 40 nights and climbed up to Mt. Horeb. He wanted to be by himself and he entered a cave wishing to die. In the Earthquake, Storm, and Fire and he did not feel the presence of God. Then he heard a GENTLE BREEZE and came out of the cave and covered his face.
HE EXPERIENCED GOD WHEN HE WENT TO A LONELY PLACE SOLITUDE.
Jesus went up to the hills alone in solitude to speak to and listen to his Father.
He returned and was concerned with the plight of his disciples who were battling with the storm and were in danger of sinking.
1. The apostles were terrified crying out “Its a Ghost!”
2. Jesus said, “Courage, it is I , do not be afraid”
3. Peter said, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you across the water.”
4. Jesus said , “Come!”
5. As soon as Peter felt the force of the Wind he took fright and began to sink.
6. He said, “Lord, save me!
7. Jesus put out his hand and held him.
8. Jesus said, “Why did you doubt?”
9. When they got into the boat, the wind dropped.
10. They in the boat said, “Truly, you are the Son of God!”
Where do I feel God’s presence in my life? He is not far away. You need to get out of yourself and stand before God. You have to search for solitude to experience God. Elijah had walked through the desert like the Israelites of old, forty days and nights and had sought out a cave to experience God. Have you found your cave in your home, in a Blessed Sacrament chapel, sitting alone in a garden? Both Elijah and Peter did not have faith to match their zeal. But God supported both of them in their dangerous tasks. Arise and be a prophet to the people around you! Arise and be ready to walk on the water, to do the impossible because of your close relationship to Jesus.
The Readings of today’s liturgy point out to us that: Trust of Elijah in Yahweh > Trust of Peter in Jesus> Paul’s Faith are put to the test.
1. Elijah, Peter and Paul put their trust in God; they never repented for having done so.
2. The enemy of faith is self-reliance. We must be grateful to God for allowing trials to come to us; they help us to get convinced of our powerlessness
3. Our trust in Christ must grow day after day; he is powerful and faithful; past experience has proved that he deserves our trust unconditionally.
4. Only Christ can take the boat of our existence to the place here we go: heaven. On reaching there we shall leave faith at the door and get in exchange its fruit: eternal life.
Look at Jesus. Right through out his sojourn on earth he is in touch with his Father and places himself in his Hands. Father not my will but thine be done. And finally before his last breath on earth he says “Into your hands I commend my Spirit”
This placing of Jesus in his Father’s hand, makes the doorway of heaven opened for us. This makes each one of us the dear children of the Father. This life of the Father we share in our Baptism when we surrender our selves into God’s hands. He fills us with His Spirit.
In this Eucharist Jesus walked the way to Calvary and to his death, alone because of his Father’s will. We ask him in this Eucharist to strengthen us to answer his call and go to him and fulfil the mission entrusted to each one of us in this Parish during the coming week.
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