Monthly Archives: June 2009

Reflecting on Mark 5:21-43

Ah, summer.  Let’s go for a swim or a boat ride out at Chatfield Dam.  I’ll bring the sandwiches―tuna with tomatoes and cheese, with two big slices of sourdough bread.  Yum.

Or, we could just sit with today’s Gospel for awhile.  We’ve got another boat ride this week, on “the other side of the lake”.  (That’s Mark’s way of saying that Jesus is knitting the kingdom of God as he takes the disciples back and forth across the lake, with Gentiles and Jews on opposite sides.)  And a juicy Markan sandwich!  You’ve got the bread on top and bottom― the beginning and end of the story of the healing of Jairus’ daughter―and the healing of the hemorrhaging woman for the good stuff between the bread.  It’s a delicious story of the power of faith to heal a little girl and an aging woman.

Jesus, we too are reaching out to touch your cloak.  We feel power going out of you.

Somehow we sense, deep inside, that God did not make death.  Without touching you, we believe.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

How do you make sense of the Gospel stories of healing in light of the losses in your own life?

Reflecting on Mark 4:35-41

God is with us in the storm

Lord, don’t you care that we are perishing? It’s an odd comfort to know that Jesus’ close friends, terrified on the lake, wondered how he could keep sleeping peacefully through the storm.

It’s comforting because we feel that way too.  Does Jesus notice that we are sick, or afraid, or losing our jobs or our homes or our health insurance?  Is he sleeping away through Iranian elections, and North Korean test bombs, and our own scary slew of mass killings here in the U.S. these past few months?

We know something about strong winds these days, out here in Tornado Alley.  But today’s first reading from Job suggests something quite unsettling:  God is in the storm itself!  God is inside the struggle.  God with us.  Emmanuel.  A little bit of Christmas here at the summer solstice.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Do you sense “God with you” in your present challenges?

Rembrandt, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633.

Reflecting on Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

They had not understood about the loaves

There is an odd moment in Mark’s Gospel in chapter six. We only read these verses (51 and 52) on weekdays, never on Sundays, and that’s a shame.  I think they provide the most startling reflection on today’s great feast than any other part of Scripture.

Earlier in the day, Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish.  Many hours later, the apostles were struggling in the boat on the lake in the middle of the night.  They saw Jesus walking towards them:

Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down.  They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves.

Huh?  They hadn’t understood about the loaves?  What’s that got to do with the miracle of walking on the water, or the healing of the blind man, or the resurrection of Jesus, or our life in Christ, or the unfolding of the universe forever and ever?  Everything.  Everything.  Happy Feast Day, Most Precious Blood Parish and all parishes named for this greatest sacrament.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What memories do you have of your First Communion?

Reflecting on Summer Graduations

I know who holds the future

It was such a beautiful morning.  The eighty graduates of Bishop Machebeuf High School processed through the spring grass to the center stand at Johnson &Wales College, waving and smiling to their adoring families in the stands.

The salutatorian and valedictory addresses were funny and warm, but I cried all the way through them because of the astonishing conviction of these young kids about the presence of Christ in their lives.  Somehow, in the middle of all the economic and high-school angst of this highly diverse class of 2009, their valedictorian felt comfortable saying to her class:

I don’t know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future.  I may choose many different paths in my life, but, this day and always, I will choose Christ.

And the majority of the class rose in acknowledgment and applause. They get it.  They believe Jesus’ promise to be with them always.  But my tears were for our beautiful young girl whom we mentor, who came up from the projects and a violent abduction, who, although unbaptized, was thrilled to go to St. Rose of Lima and then to Machebeuf, and who is now leaving that safe cocoon with absolutely no theology of incarnation, no sense of a God who is with her always.  Our work isn’t nearly done, church.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

How are the graces of your baptism evident in your life?