In today’s first reading, we see Moses striking the rock, not once but twice. In verse 8 of Numbers, chapter 20, we hear God tell Moses, “Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters.” They were instructed to just speak to the rock. St. Augustine on this passage, tells us that they were not commanded to strike the rock at all; and when the water did not come at first, they struck again. In verse 10, then, they speak as if the work that they performed was of their own doing, “Can we bring you forth water out of this rock?” For this prideful act, Moses was reprimanded by God and told that he would not be the one to lead his people into the promised-land.
Then again, in the Gospel we hear Christ telling Peter, “Thou are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church.” (Matt. 16:v18) But shortly after saying these elevating words, we hear Jesus tell Peter, “Get behind me, Satan”. This was said, because Peter refused to accept that Jesus would be crucified. He was thinking as man and not as God would.
In both passages, we hear quick rebukes being uttered by God, because of man’s refusal to simply allow God’s plan to play out. These readings today really cry out to us, trying to shake us into reality. Don’t we realize that God’s work will be done, must be done? Man strives to dictate how and by whom things will be done. When we see things happen that we don’t understand, we cry out, “How can God let these things happen?” Why does He allow the baby to die? Why is there so much suffering in this world? Why does He allow evil to co-habit the earth? We don’t understand and like the Hebrew nation of
old, we cry out against God.
We have often heard the adage that God writes with crooked lines. Isaias (Isaiah) in his prophecies pointing towards the Christ, says in 42: verse 16 “I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight: these things have I done to them, and have not forsaken them”. These are powerful words, comforting words from our God. We think He abandons us, has forsaken us. We can’t see the reason for things. We don’t know why things can happen to us and to others. And because we can’t see, because we don’t know… what do we do? We blame God. WE abandon Him!! Our faith gives out. We weep. We use this as an excuse to turn away, to seek our comfort in other things.
God continually urges us to trust Him, to believe in Him. What is faith, if not TRUST? If we really believe that Jesus is God, if we really believe that Jesus, our God, loves us totally, unconditionally, why do we find it so hard to trust Him? We are so reluctant to relinquish the reins of control. We think, “If I don’t hold onto these reins, if I don’t control these horses pulling this carriage, I will truly be hurt. I will suffer.” So we grasp the reins tighter, refusing to let go. We are totally unaware that the horses are running because God lets them run. Will God really do something that will hurt us? Isn’t it really, we are afraid that what God permits will be something that we don’t want. So we refuse to let go. We resist allowing our lives to be guided by our God. And in that resistance we prevent Jesus from working through us.
Tag Archive: Faith
The Gospel today, focuses squarely on Judas Iscariot. Why? Why not Peter, as well? Both men turned their backs on Jesus. Peter with his denial and Judas with his betrayal, both spurned the Christ. In effect, both men wanted nothing to do with Jesus either out of fear or out of greed.
The only difference between the two is faith. Though both had fallen, as all of us do, Peter never relinquished his faith in Jesus. The realization, of how great his offense was, reduced Peter to tears. And in his sorrow, in his time of trial, he fled back to Jesus who was waiting for him. Judas, on the other hand, on his realization of the magnanimity of his offense, despaired. One, relying on his faith in Jesus, returned with sincere sorrow, grateful in that faith that he would be forgiven. Judas had no such strength to fall back on. His faith in material things delivered no such solace. With no reliance on Jesus, his life proved to be empty, meaningless and he sought the coward’s way out, he hung himself.
No one is perfect. Neither you nor I can point our incriminating finger at Judas without turning that same finger back upon ourselves. Christ said it, Himself, “He who is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…”-1 This is not an attempt to soften our own negligence, to make light of our own capricious living. We are all struggling to bring our lives into accordance with God. Yes, He understands our frailty. But our weakness cannot be our excuse. Our lives will always be a continuing struggle. Life is a struggle to excel, to succeed, to grow.
In what are we struggling to excel? To succeed? To grow? That is the important aspect of our lives. If material things are of paramount importance to us, then in that, we have placed our faith. What occupies our main focus during the day? Then in that, we have placed our faith. It is not rocket science. What do we want? What do we desire? What moves us, and motivates us? That, and only that, will show us what our primary concern is. Yes, we should be attentive to our finances, our children, our home, and our jobs. But these concerns must always be placed within our trust in God, our faith in a loving, caring God. We can, like Peter, place our trust in Jesus. Or, we can place our trust in things. What will warm you the most? Which will comfort you in your time of need?
-1 John, 8, 7
SELF RELIANCE IS OVER-RATED
Where do we put our faith, in ourselves? In our job? What does it mean to us, when we go to church? Who is Jesus? How can we have hope, or put our trust in Someone, if we don’t know what that someone means to us? Sadly, all of us, at times, will go to church more out of ritual then wanting to go.
Sunday, or late Saturday, means maybe getting dressed a little bit more fashionably, and maybe, not. We gather the kids in the car and we bribe with a promise of a breakfast or dinner out, if the children are good. We sit uncomfortably in the pew, waiting for the Mass to start, or maybe we rush in a few minutes late. We say a hurried prayer, or possibly continue a conversation that was started in the car. The priest walks down the aisle. Some people up near the front sing a hymn or something. We listen, kind of, to the few preliminary readings. Then the big one, the Gospel, is read by the priest (or the deacon). The sermon begins and we sit back into the pew and tend to the children. Our eyes wander, looking at the other people sitting around us. We wonder what they are wondering about. Sometimes we hear a few words of the sermon, and speculate what he is talking about. We then hear more readings from the book, at the center of the altar. The singing, the getting up and down, the Our Father, all begins to run together into an amorphous confused cloud. Pew by pew, we get up and receive a piece of bread. Our thoughts wander from the bread is stiff, to it is like cardboard, to it is stale, to watching the people walk past our pew. Every now and then we think to ourselves, “God what’s wrong with me?” The final blessing is made and we all go back to our homes.
If this sounds familiar, then we need help. The pivotal part of our week, around which all of our life should center has become meaningless to us. We have let it slip and fall, until it has become… we are not sure what! I asked earlier, “How can we put our faith, our trust in Jesus, if we are unfamiliar with Him?” It is not his fault that you don’t know him. His life, His work, His message is contained…no it resides in that Book they read from at every Mass. (But we don’t listen to that, do we. We are busy with other things.) It is not the church’s fault either. At every Mass, the sermon relates how the various passages that are read that day, affect us. (But we don’t listen to that either. We are busy with other things.)
Somewhere in our lives, we came to the conclusion that the Mass wasn’t important. Actually, we didn’t understand its importance and rather than try to understand, we decided it was easier to just let it drift away. A decision, made in the past, now erodes the very hope and trust that we so desperately need. That decision, fortunately, is not irreversible. All we need to do is resolve to understand. Read about the Mass and why things are done; read about Christ’s life and His message to all of us; read what our Baptism really signifies and how it empowers us. Our Faith tells us it isn’t Hopeless, if we Trust. All we need do is sincerely ask Jesus for guidance and hope and trust will become part of us.
The Holy Spirit will come upon you
(6th in a series of a presentation on The Apostles Creed)
The Creed is everything we, as Catholics, believe in faith. Some which we have already dealt with can be “backed up”, as it were, with secular historical testimony. Some aspects, such as the one we deal with today, are not only impossible to prove, but difficult to even comprehend. We speak of Jesus, the Son of God, as being born of a woman. Mary is told when she asks how this could possibly happen, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you-1”. The Lord, the Giver of Life sanctifies her womb and Mary becomes the Mother of God. ”Let it be done to me according to your word. . .-2“ Mary responds to her calling, her vocation.
Let’s take a few steps backward, for a moment. Mary is greeted by the Angel, with the familiar words of “Hail, full of grace-3”. Mary, being greeted in such fashion, leads the Catholic Church to realize and proclaim the dogma of the Immaculate Conception-4. How could Mary be full of grace? Was she not like every other son or daughter of Eve, tainted with original sin? No, she isn’t. The dogma proclaims that from the first moment of Mary’s own conception, because of her future role as Mother of God, she comes into this world free of original sin. So imbued with God’s grace, Mary gives her fiat, her acceptance to her role.
We try to get our arms around this portion of the Creed, but it seems to defy reality. It does not conform to the way things happen, here on earth. But then, neither does the curing of the sick, by word or touch; neither does the suspension of the law of gravity and thus walking on water; neither does the raising of the dead back to life. None of these conform to the way things happen on earth, but God, the Creator of these laws, can and does override them.
From this beautiful section of the Creed, we see the Divine Love that God has for mankind. We see through the eyes of faith that God was not about to abandon His people, when the first sin was committed. We speak in words that are restricted by time, so we can only say that when this happened, He did such and such. But God has no restrictions of time. The concept of time came with creation. Things are and then, after a period of time, are not, they cease to be. God IS. God exists. His intention is always to be involved with His creation. Such is His love for us.
This was a very difficult section to put on paper. Our faith, our beliefs are not something that we can go out and prove. If we could, they would not be beliefs but proven reality. I feel that this one section, however, is a critical part of our belief. This leads to everything else that we hold dear and sacred. A beautiful prayer to say many times during the day, is: Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. goto next segment
-1 Luke 1:34-35
-2 Luke 1:28-38
-3 Luke 1:28
-4 Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma in 1854
