Thoughts from the Second Floor Front XII Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 20, 2021
In the first reading God is speaking out of a storm, often a device used by the Sacred Writer as a background for God’s appearance. The 38th chapter of Job is one of my favorite passages in Scripture. It is filled with the dynamism God brings to one’s life. God questions Job as if he is on the witness stand and God does it from a storm.
Where were you when I founded the earth… Who shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands?
(Job 38: 4, 8-9)
God is speaking to Job of divine wisdom and power, which are quite beyond the reach of mortals like Job and us.
In the Gospel, Jesus calms a storm. Mark sets the scene for us telling us that evening drew on and Jesus directs them into the boat to cross over to the other side. The signals indicating ominous foreboding are the time of day and the fact that they are on the water. Evening is a time of darkness when the forces of evil are out and about engaging in mischief, the ancients believed. There was also a sense that the sea was a place of sinister events again brought on by uncontrollable evil forces. In American literature the place where evil lurked is not in the water but in the forest. Think of the story we read in school from American authors of a certain era. Where does Washington Irving lead Rip Van Winkle and what does he encounter when he wanders through the woods and hills of the Catskills? He meets strange men who get him all liquored up and he sleeps for 20 years. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne places that innocent in the forest at night where he is horrified to see the apparently pious men and women of his town transformed into demons, dancing around a fire and screaming for the Prince of Lies. The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Binét tells the tale of Jabez Stone and the price he was willing to pay to get out from under his run of bad luck. All these taking place in a forest.
Jesus defeats the forces of evil he encounters on the open water. The first miracle he performs in the Public Ministry is an exorcism. In casting out the demon Mark tells us that Jesus first silences it. Quiet, come out of him. (Mk 1:25) He does the same thing with the storm when He silences it: He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” (Mk 4:39) The demon groans and the boat groans. The Evil One cannot tolerate silence. Noise, disorder, dins, disturbances and disruptions are what it wants. This differs with what Paul asserts are the fruits of the Holy Spirit’s presence: In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (Gal 5: 22 – 23a)
In the closing verses of the passage, we get a sense that Jesus is more than just disappointed in his disciples. He seems to be accusing them of cowardice and a lack of faith. He wants them to have faith in Him, no matter the circumstances. I recently attended a funeral for a friend of mine, he actually was our family undertaker (The Irish always have one.) Collecting Holy Cards is sort of an occupational hazard for priests accumulating an inordinate number of them. I picked up Bill’s and found it to be worth sharing. It is from St. Francis DeSales. Our good friends the Oblate Fathers regularly quote him and I will share with you what my friend Bill offered as some parting wisdom from DeSales:
Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations, and say continually: 'The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me and I in Him.