Life on Choppy Waters
Jesus calms the storm
Announcements for June 19, 2021:
Happy Father's Day (for Sunday)!
The diocese's Corpus Christi food drive is ongoing. To participate, visit Catholic Charities' website to make a monetary donation, or to shop online to have items shipped directly to their food pantries.
This weekend gives us an opportunity to support seminarian education. Go beyond the tithe to help seminarians studying to become priests in the Diocese of Paterson.
Summer hours begin at the rectory and school office this week. Even with slightly limited availability, we will continue to be responsive to your needs as they arise.
As always, check out the Parishioner Portal for more announcements.
Dear Saints,
Last weekend, we saw Jesus' kingdom-of-God proclamation in parable form. In this weekend's Gospel passage, we see it in action. The result is the same: We are challenged to imagine, grapple with, and give ourselves over to God's loving rule.
On the surface, Jesus' calming the storm reverses the lessons of last week's parables. His rebuking the wind and commanding the sea to be still is immediate intervention par excellence: God can fix your problems in a snap (if you can wake him up).
Pitting his words and deeds against each other, of course, doesn't do justice to Jesus or his kingdom-of-God movement. We only grasp who Jesus is and what he's up to when we allow the parables and his actions to paint one coherent picture.
Here, I think we have to make at least two points:
As the embodiment of the creator God, as the Messiah of Israel, and as the truly human being (hold those together!) Jesus exercises authority over the elements. There is tremendous power at work in him and working through him -- there is tremendous power in his kingdom-of-God movement.
The disciples participation in this kingdom-of-God movement comes only from their trusting and following Jesus. Note that Jesus takes the lead in their setting out across the sea -- he knows what they will face, and he will see them through the storm.
In short, Jesus' words and deeds challenge us to entrust ourselves to him. Because the power of the creator God is at work in him to raise up his fallen world, because Jesus is at the head of God's new-Israel movement, and because he reveals to us who we were made to be, Jesus is the absolute and irreplaceable center of God's rescue operation.
How good it is to have been called by this same Jesus, to have been summoned to serve God's purposes, and to have been given access to life-giving and love-sustaining faith. Christ is setting our course even now, and should we remain faithful to him we will not be defeated - and we should not be deterred - by life's choppy waters.
I love you, my friends. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Christ's Peace,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
Preparing for Mass?
Check out this weekend's readings:
The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Storm on the Sea of Galilee
Rembrandt, 1633