Author: yuengerwv

Mother Angelica, of EWTN fame, once said, “Sometimes for God to do the impossible, he first asks us to do the ridiculous.’ The first reading is an example of that when the man bringing twenty barley loaves is asked to set them before a hundred people. Doing the ridiculous requires letting go of how we see the world and trusting that God has a plan. Many major industries today were started by someone doing the ridiculous at a time when their efforts would seem doomed to failure. I remember hearing of a man who in the 1940s started a farm in Hawaii to produce nuts. Everyone told him he was crazy as it takes fifteen years for the trees to mature and produce a good yield. In 1970s Mauna Loa nuts were a big bit and made a significant contribution to the macadamia nut industry.
We need to remember, that as the psalm says today, ‘The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.” It is God who provides. As Paul says we need to heed the Lord and “live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience”. How hard it is for us to live the way we are called to live, trusting in God.
The Gospel today echoes the first reading. Philip sets the stage for the story, yet even Andrew and Peter don’t yet trust that Jesus can pull things off. Interestingly a key person in this story is a nameless young boy. He willingly gives away his food trusting that God will provide. How often are we called to be like that nameless person? We don’t get our name in print. We don’t get a thank you. We don’t get recognition for our charitable deeds. Yet, our meager contributions can make a significant impact on what God intends to accomplish.

The first reading is one that strikes to the heart of many issues facing the Church today. It may seem that too many of our priest, bishops, or even cardinals, mislead and scatter God’s flock. Most, no doubt, felt they were justified in their preaching or behavior. As I have pointed out previously, most heresies and many schisms were started by priests, bishops, and cardinals. One of the reasons l have offered free a Catechism of the Catholic Church is so that the laity can keep up to date on the Church’s teachings, regardless of the local pastor has to say. Remember 50% of all priests, bishops, and cardinals, are below average! We all need to be well grounded in our faith so as to recognize when someone begins to lead us astray. The Gospel acclamation says, “My sheep hear my voice,” yet to hear his voice we need to be doing our homework to make sure we are listening to the right shepherds. If we seek his voice, he will teach us man things.

Following up on the end of last week’s comments, “Sometimes the hardest people to reach out to are our own family and friends.” We have Amos being chastised and told to “get lost” by the local priest. Like Amos, we would respond, “I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets.” The Lord expects each of us to reach out and proclaim the truth that God has revealed to those around us. Each of us, by virtue of our baptism, are called to be prophets -that is spokespersons for God. We do this because God has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.”
While Francis of Assisi took to heart the command of Jesus in today’s Gospel, most of us are not important. In whom do we trust to provide for our needs? So often we presume that it is our currency, or savings, or hard work that provides for our needs. Yet, how quickly can those disappear? There is a saying that says, “work as if everything depends on you, but pray because everything depends on God.” It says on our currency “In God We Trust”, yet so often we seem to omit God from our daily lives. Perhaps appreciating God’s providence is something we can all work on improving in our lives.

Have you ever heard a prophet? Hopefully we all have as we listen to the words proclaimed week after week. Hopefully the homily draws us closer to God and helps us to respond to the good news that Jesus and his church wants proclaimed. Yet how often does the phrase, “Hard of face and obstinate of heart” describe us? Are we too distracted to listen? Too caught up in our own thoughts and desires to listen to God?
Do we follow the example mentioned in the psalm and keep “our eyes are fixed on the Lord”? It is easy for us to get distracted by the many issues around us. Even Paul had difficulties as he said, “a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.” Have we ever thought that the difficulties and challenges we face are part of God’s helping to not become to elated, so that his power may be made perfect in our weakness?
We all look for compliments on how we are doing and expect our family and friends to be our biggest supporters. Yet even for Jesus, with the miracles and preaching, had people scoff at him and say, “Where did this man get all this?” “And they took offense at him.” Sometimes the hardest people to reach out to are our own family and friends.

We hear God addressing Job and responding to his complaints about his treatment by God. How often do we complain about our difficulties and blame God for our problems? No matter what is not going right in our lives, who are we to tell God he has made mistakes? We cannot put the blame on God.  We tend to forget that God has two wills, His manifest will, which is when He deems something to occur and it does, and His permissive will, which is when He allows things to happen even if He doesn’t like the happening or the results. (For those concerned about the masculine pronouns, I defer to the Hebrew Scriptures from which the story of Job comes.)
The Psalm sets up the transition from the first reading to the Gospel reading.
Paul reminds us of our calling to live in such a way as to demonstrate our commitment to Jesus, because we are called to live no longer live for ourselves “but for him who for our sake died and was raised”. Do we truly live is such a way as to set aside our selfish desires and wants in favor of what God is calling us to be and to do?
This story of the storm on the lake and the disciples’ response is a perfect example of the Gospel’s writer being familiar with Sacred Scriptures. Pulling from today’s Psalm the story reiterates the divine nature of Jesus. A nature that can control not only the healing of peoples but also the wind and the waves. This brings us back to the question of “Who are we to tell God how things are to be done?” When we ponder God’s permissive will, we need to keep in mind that just because God allows nature, and humans, to do things not to his liking, it doesn’t mean God wanted such things to happen. Sin entered the world though human actions and remains in world continuing to cause undesirable results.

Paul’s letter this week reminds us that “we walk by faith, not by sight.”  How many of us figure we are in control and can plan the future the way we think it should go, without even consulting with God as to what he thinks is best for us?  Paul says, “we aspire to please him, whether we are at home or away.”  Do we?  How about in our political life?
Do we allow our faith to guide us toward the future or do we figure we are in charge of our own destiny, with God as a mere footnote?  He later adds that, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.”  How often do we hear from some that “once saved, always saved”?  Yet that contradicts what Paul is saying.  We still need to respond to God’s call, as we heard last week when Jesus says, “For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”  Doing the will of God is not a one-time thing but an ongoing experience of our relationship with God.  Like the seed that grows and sprouts.  Does it have fertile space for growth, or do we have the path choked with weeds?

We hear the familiar story of God finding out that Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.  It is important to note that neither Adam nor Eve ever expressed regret or sorry for their disobedience.  In fact, they blamed each other and the serpent for their decision to disobey God.  How often do we refuse to accept the responsibility for our poor decisions?  Ever wonder how the outcome might have changed if they had expressed remorse?  The Psalm picks up on this by pointing out God is full of mercy and redemption, (If we lift our voce in supplication!).
Paul points out that our trust is in the grace in abundance that God has poured out upon us.  He reminds us that, despite the secular emphasis on power and possessions, our world is transitory.  He emphasizes that we are looking toward a not what is temporal but for what is eternal.  Not what is seen, but what is unseen.  Do we take that to heart?  Yes, we still need to pay the rent, and put food on the table, but all of this is transitory, if our focus is on heaven.
The Gospel today has two key foci, the integrity of Jesus’s authority over Satan, and the significance of what it means to be a disciple, i.e., brother and sister and mother.  Even if others think we are crazy for ignoring normal family, being a disciple has a greater value.

The first reading refers to God, and the actions of God in “the days of old, before your time.” It asks, “Did anything so great ever happen before?” So many in our days deny that there is a God and that everything just happened by chance in a big bang. They seem to be playing word games that are inconsistent with logic. Why? Because in order for there to be a big bang, something had to already exist in order to go ban! Second, in order for something that has been stable to go bang there had to be a cause for the bang. So even if the big bang happened, God had to have created whatever went bang. This would be an act of God the Father.
The second reading refers to the Spirit of God. We are “adopted” children of God. Though we must respond and act like children of God, or we fall back into fear. When the priest mixes the water with the wine in the chalice prior to the consecration he states, “by the mystery of this water and wine may we share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” That sharing in the divinity is brought about as we receive the Body and Blood of Christ.
In the Gospel Jesus specifically mentions the trinity in the baptismal formula we still use today, “baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” Thus from the beginning of the Church founded by Christ, there is a reference to the Trinity. One God, Three Persons. Anything one can say about the one they can say about the other, except they are the other.

The story of Pentecost is one that is almost as hard to believe as the Resurrection story. People speaking and being understood in many different languages!  Crazy!!  Yet such was the birthday of the Church. Not all of us may have the gift of being able to speak multiple languages, however, the language of Love that Jesus told us to share can transcend many verbal and cultural divides. Are we willing to tell whoever will listen of the mighty acts of God!” Many people tell me they are not able to tell others about their faith.  This is not uncommon as Paul tells us “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit.” It is important to remember that is the reason for community.  That each can use the gifts they were given. Paul reminds us that the gifts given us by God are not just for ourselves but that, “to each the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” The benefit is for the good of all not of just ourselves.  We need to remember that we are all interdependent. No one can be an island unto themselves.
We have in the Gospel, Jesus breathing on the disciples and giving them the capacity to forgive sins, something only God can do in Hebrew traditions. Thus, even in this special moment Jesus is thinking of the entire community as we all are sinners and need God’s forgiveness. The sacrament that is instituted here is an important one. The forgiveness of sins also shows a break with the temple cult and worship where animals were regularly sacrificed for the forgiveness of one’s sins. This is truly a radical departure from Jewish custom. But as we know, the temple will only last for another forty years. Jesus was preparing the people for when the temple was gone and God forgives our sins without the death of another animal, as Jesus himself was the ultimate sacrifice for our sins.

In the first reading we have St. Luke continuing the story of Jesus from his Gospel post Jesus’ resurrection to the day he was taken up.  It mentions the forty days, in which Jesus appeared and instructed the disciples. The day we call Ascension. In some diocese, recognizing that the term “forty days” does not refer to a specific number of days, this feast has been transferred to the first Sunday following the fortieth day after Easter.
Even though it refers to Jesus’ speaking of the kingdom of God, some disciples still expected a reestablishment of the earthly kingdom of we walk with Jesus, do we have our own agenda? Do we listen without prejudice to what Jesus is telling us, or are we telling Jesus what to do? Are we witnesses of Jesus and the Kingdom of God, or are we more concerned about earthly matters?
There are various options for the second reading, I have selected Eph 1:17-23. In it, Paul refers to a Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that our hearts may know what the hope to Jesus’ call.
The reading from Gospel of Mark challenges his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all the world. Then refers to Jesus being taken up into heaven, something we call Ascencion. Are we preaching everywhere the message of Jesus or are we hiding our faith behind a world of political correctness?
As we continue to celebrate our faith, let us always remember that one important aspect of our faith is to share it so that others may come to believe.