Daily Masses - the feast of Saint Dominic and the nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary time

Mass was offered on Saturday for the repose of the soul of Pat Cowley (+), may she rest in the peace of Christ. Mass was offered twice on Sunday morning, first for the Parish intention (all Parishioners), and then for a last minute intention, for the people of Nagasaki who perished during the infamous bombing of that city on this day in 1945, a bombing which completely destroyed it. Nagasaki continues to have a large Catholic community which until the bombing traces its origin to the personal missionary efforts of the great sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary, Saint Francis Xavier. 

Our Sunday Mass readings today seemed to me to have the theme of God's presence within Creation being quiet and yet perfectly in control, while humanity trembles before the larger features of Creation. So, in our first reading, Elijah (Elias) learns to recognise the presence of God in a stirring breath of wind:

"There he made his lodging in a cave; and all at once the Lord’s word came to him, 'Elias, what dost thou here?' 'Why,' he answered, 'I am all jealousy for the honour of the Lord God of hosts; see how the sons of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thy altars, and put Thy prophets to the sword! Of these, I only am left, and now my life, too, is forfeit.' Then word came to him to go out and stand there in the Lord’s presence; the Lord God Himself would pass by. A wind there was, rude and boisterous, that shook the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the whisper of a gentle breeze. Elias, when he heard it, wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out to stand at the cave door. There a voice came to him, 'Elias, what dost thou here?'" - 3 Kings, 19: 9-13

So, there is that idea of God our Lord appearing out of nowhere in particular, but just merely being present within Creation, and so represented by the 'whisper of a gentle breeze.' It reminds me of one of the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, that God is immanent - inherent - within Creation, to the extent that the act of Creation was not terminated at some definite point in the past, but continues actively today, all things being held constantly in existence through that ongoing act of God. That's what I'm thinking about when I say that, despite the immensity of the challenges that life brings us, God is always firmly in control. He permits all things that torment us and never sends us more than we can bear. 

And surely this is the point of today's gospel reading, which presents the story of Christ walking upon the waves of a choppy sea. To understand this story, we have to step into the shoes of the Jewish men in the boat, with their understanding of the long and turbulent history of their nation, Israel, with all its uncertainties and difficulties. In the midst of every calamity they suffered, and the Old Testament is very graphical in the details of these, the Hebrews were certain of one thing: that God loved them in a particular way, and favoured them over all other nations, that He had worked marvels for them in the past and would do so again, when necessary. Hence the great hopes for the Messiah to restore Israel to the fortunes she had enjoyed under the united monarchies of David and his son Solomon. They were, after all, the People of the Promise, as Saint Paul notes in the second reading:

"...the continual anguish I feel in my heart, and how it has ever been my wish that I myself might be doomed to separation from Christ, if that would benefit my brethren, my own kinsmen by race. They are Israelites, adopted as God’s sons; the visible presence, and the covenant, and the giving of the law, and the Temple worship, and the promises, are their inheritance; the patriarchs belong to them, and theirs is the human stock from which Christ came; Christ, who rules as God over all things, blessed for ever, Amen." - Romans, 9: 1-5

Paul felt increasingly separated from his Jewish kinsmen, who continued to reject the Christian message, which is the culmination of their long history. But he, like the Apostles in that boat, continued to acknowledge the promises made to the Hebrew people by God, which are so very important in the several documents that have come to form the New Testament. The Hebrew/Jewish background is important, for in remembering the extraordinary story in the gospel reading, Saint Matthew notes that they were in trouble in a choppy sea, and that Christ came walking over the troublesome waves and said, 'Take Courage.' The leader of the Apostles took courage, however briefly, and could also perform the marvel. The presence of God in the Old Testament stories has become the presence of Christ in the New. For when Christ climbed into the boat, the storm ended. Think of the boat as the Christian Church, in which the presence of Christ - even the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament - persists, and everything becomes clear. Just as in the Elijah story in the first reading, God is completely in charge and ever present, despite storms and troubles of any type. If we think of our present crisis and fears, and remember Who walks over all of it to our assistance, quietly, serenely, then His own peace will be ours also. 

If we were Jews (and in a way we are, as members of a Jewish Church) we would sit up with a jerk when somebody who claimed to be God were to say 'I AM,' for that was the Name for God given to Moses on the holy mountain. And here, when the Apostles were in a superstitious fear about the Figure approaching on the waves, they heard the quiet voice - in fact, a very ancient voice - say, 'Take courage, I AM, do not fear...'