Ecstasy, Reason, and God's Love
 
June 23, 2024
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP

Job 38:  1-9, 12-18; All Shall Be Well, Joyce Rouse/Julian of Norwich; 2 Cor 5: 13-20; Mark 4: 35-41
 
           Julian of Norwich was a 14th century woman mystic who lived through very turbulent times, including the Black Plague in Europe. She experienced a series of sixteen mystical encounters with Jesus, revealing to her the love of God. In one of these encounters, Jesus told her, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

          Julian perceived this statement not as soothing, but as shocking. How could this possibly be, she thought, given the reality of pain, suffering, and violence in the world? Years later, she wrote how she had come to understand these words of Jesus: “Would you learn to see clearly your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love… Why did he show it to you? For love… Thus I was taught that love was our Lord’s meaning.” She went on in her writings to portray God as a loving mother. She spent the rest of her life counseling people to avoid sin and live in love.

          Our readings show us other examples of this same age-old human question: How do understand the love of God when tragedy strikes in our lives? In our first reading, Job lost all his property, wealth, and even his children and family, one after another. He struggled to understand God as loving. His friends tried to convince him that God was vengeful. But God then addressed Job face-to-face, reminding him of the power and beauty of her gifts of creation, in the words of a loving mother. “Where were you when I spun the cosmos into being?... Who planted the earth with seeds of life?... Were you there when the seas filled the earth as waters burst forth from the womb?” “I am still present to you,” this mother-God seemed to say. “Joy and sorrow may pass through your life, but my love, like the sea and stars, always remain.”

          In our Gospel, the apostles sailed with Jesus across the Sea of Galilee, when a violent storm rose and threatened to drown them all. They were terrified and begged Jesus to protect them. Jesus calmed the seas and waves, and then asked his friends, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” The Gospel says they were filled awe and asked one another, “Who is this?”
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          So in these two accounts, Job and the apostles were left, not with understanding, but with awe of God. They were left with ecstatic wonder at God’s enduring presence with them.
 
          Our reading from Paul to the Corinthians is an attempt to approach understanding of God’s love, even when life is sad and confusing. Paul acknowledged that sometimes ecstasy and awe are our only ways of responding to God’s wonders. Yet our human reason demands understanding. He said, “If we seem ecstatic, it is for God.  If we appear of rational disposition, it is for you.  ….” Paul’s answer to this puzzle was this, “Jesus did die, , so that those who live might also no longer live for themselves, but for the raised and living body of Christ” Paul’s conclusion is the same as Julian’s: Whatever happens, we are called to love. We are called to live for others, to die to our own selfishness, and to live in self-giving love, as Jesus did.
 
          Jesus mentioned faith, asking the apostles in the boat, “Why are you afraid, have you no faith?” As I see it, faith seems to be at the crossing of ecstasy, or awe, and reason. Often, when we are facing tragedy, it is hard to recognize God’s love. We have to hang out in faith for a while. We know through reason that God does not wish for anyone to experience pain or loss. How could God have created this beautiful world and our beautiful relationships if she did not love us without reservation? Yet, because of God’s total love, she created freedom and choice for us. With freedom, comes the possibility of wrong choice, of violence and greed and death. Whatever happens, faith can sometimes tide us over until we are once again ready to recognize that God is love, and that, in the end, all shall be well. ​

Seeds of Justice
 June 16, 2024
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP
 Ezekiel 17: 22-23; Ps. 65; 2 Cor 9: 5-15; Mark 4: 1-9, 26-33
 
                       Many of you probably know of the beautiful life and legacy of Sister Dorothy Stang, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, who worked for 40 years in the Amazon to help defend the land and indigenous small farmers, in opposition to large landowners, multi-national corporations, and others who wished to destroy them. Like Jesus, and many other justice activists he inspired, she made a lot of enemies in the course of her compassionate work. She was martyred on Feb. 12, 2005, by assassins hired by corrupt ranchers in Brazil, as she was on her way to aid a family whose house and farm had been burned down.
           At Sister Dorothy’s funeral, one of the peasant farmers in attendance stood up and said, “Today we are not going to bury Sister Dorothy. We are going to plant her.” They understood that resurrection means following in the footsteps of a saint like Sister Dorothy, keeping her work alive by carrying it on. She had planted many seeds, and her community cultivated them by energetically continuing her justice efforts.
           If we look at our first reading today, from Ezekiel, in context, we see that the great eagle symbolizes God, and the planting of the cedar shoot is a metaphor for the establishment of God’s people in a new land. It is a prophetic command to us and to all to help provide homes for those who need them, and to stand up for those whose homelands are taken from them, or whose heritage and culture are threatened.
           Paul, in our second reading, from Second Corinthians, sends us a similar message of encouragement to help those in need. The letter this passage came from was sent to gentile Christians in Corinth, encouraging them to help the poor Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, and to do so with humility and gratitude. “Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully,” Paul advises them, and us. “You are glorifying God by living out the gospel of Christ through the generosity of your contribution to them and to all others.” We are called to bountifully sow support for those in need-- even those, maybe especially those, outside our cultural and faith traditions.
           Jesus calls us to fight for the poor by generously waging peace as well. In today’s gospel, he calls us to be like mustard seeds, growing up to provide shelter for many. Be like the good soil in which the seed grows readily, he tells us—deep, fertile, hospitable to new life for those whose previous life may have been destroyed. But he also reminds us to ground our work for the poor and homeless in prayer, and in humility before the endless loving creativity of God. Like the farmer who plants the seed and then harvests the grain without understanding how God makes it grow, we must try to work always in concert with God’s plan of home and livelihood for all, without judgement and without prejudice.
           Let us take the teachings in these readings to heart, and do what we can to be seeds of justice in this troubled world. Let us work to grow into the kind of strong trees that can provide wood for homes for those who need them. Let us humbly give up our lives as seeds to live as food, medicine, and shelter.