Dominica 4 post Pentecosten
Evening, 11 June 2016 /
Church of St John the Evangelist / Agawam
For I reckon
that the sufferings of this present age are not worthy to be compared
with the glory
to come that will be revealed in us (Rom 8:18).
We do well to begin with today’s
collect.
Give to us,
we beseech you, Lord: that the course of the world may be directed peacefully
for us by your ordering and your Church may rejoice in tranquil devotion.[1]
A particularly beautiful and, we
feel, appropriate prayer for our times. And yet, this plea for peace is not
limited to the fourth Sunday after Pentecost. During each holy Mass we make a
similar prayer. Immediately after the Our Father, the priest recites, secretly,
the Libera nos. This prayer of the Mass
is called the embolism, because it is
an interpolation or elaboration on the Our Father which precedes it.[2] It begs the Father to free
us from past, present, and future evils, through the intercession of the Mother
of God, the Apostles Peter, Paul, and Andrew.
However, like today’s collect, the
embolism also beseeches God for peace: “Graciously give peace to our days, so
that aided by the work of your mercy, we may be ever free from sin and kept
safe from all disturbance.” In several mediaeval liturgies of the West, various
prayers and supplications were often inserted between the Our Father and the
embolism, even entire psalms; the priests and other clergy, too, would often
kneel or lie prostrate (though such practices were abrogated by the Council of
Trent.)[3] Nevertheless, we see that
this part of the Mass is particularly given over to urgent prayers for peace
amidst the tribulations and vicissitudes of life. Daily, this prayer rises to
Almighty God.
Then there are the words of St Paul
from today’s epistle, which confirm the need for such urgent prayers: “For we
know that all creation groans and travails in pain until now.” We might ask
ourselves whether we needed St Paul to say as much. But the ancient compilers
of our Canon knew this as well—Libera
nos, Domine!
In light of that, we are given for
our contemplation a scene beside the lake of Genesareth, which sets a vivid
spiritual landscape before us. On the one hand, we have our collect, epistle,
and the embolism of the Mass offering prayers for peace amidst danger; on the
other hand, we have the broken nets, a large catch of fish, and the vocation of
Peter, James, and John. What lesson can we discover?
When the Almighty God does something,
he does not do so cheaply or by halves; they said this explicitly of our Lord
when he walked among us: bene omnia fecit.[4] The large catch of fish
speaks precisely to this point. At Genesareth, Christ did not gather a few
fish; he did not even gather many fish; he placed so many fish in Simon’s nets
as to bring them to the point of rupture. The word superabundance comes to mind, and it is a principle of God’s
operation in salvation history.
Note well the disposition of Simon.
Christ gives a command, and although perhaps skeptical, Simon obeys. In the
face of what appears futile or difficult or wasteful, the standing order of
fidelity reaches the ear of our hearts as well. Simon is rewarded for his
obedience. Now, this is not to make the promise of miracles; the televangelists
who preach the prosperity Gospel speak of such things: they guarantee showers
of blessings and sweetness in exchange for some kind of affective movement
toward God. But this can only strike us as deeply immature, inadequate, and
self-serving. Ask the Maccabean mother whether her fidelity brought her worldly
comfort and blessing,[5] or any of the martyrs and
confessors.
No, fidelity to Christ the Master is
something altogether different. A mature interior life means obedience and
fidelity despite the outward appearances. The Gospel teaches us that it ours
is to obey—it is God’s is to arrange the fruition. Only once we have begun
to love God for himself, rather than for the expectation of any reward, can we
begin to make large strides in the spiritual life. We do not know what Simon
expected, but it is reasonable to surmise that he harboured some small doubt.
This might explain his reaction once they had reached the shore: Exi a me, quia homo peccator sum. He
perceived that there was something before him that superseded him, a power
whose presence he could not endure. But the Sacred Heart of Jesus sees right
through our excuses and speaks those words of mercy so often heard in the
Scriptures during such episodes: Noli
timere.
If our obedience and fidelity must be
prompt and disinterested, then our faith must be bold and true. Remember the
principle of superabundance. We must
never confuse a merely human belief with supernatural faith; and we might well
say that the crisis in the Church today is reducible to this very confusion.
Belief is based upon calculations and a perception of reality that does not
transcend the boundaries of normal experience in the world; it is why we are
enamored with statistics and demographics. Such things are quantifiable, but
they have nothing to do with the supernatural faith as given to us by Christ.
Human belief is meager in its expectations and blind. In the end, it refuses to
ascribe causality to God and places man at the center of reality.
Supernatural faith is the complete
opposite. Supernatural faith acknowledges the high sovereignty of God; it
lovingly admits that without God, the human being can do nothing.[6] St Paul expressed the
endgame of supernatural faith when he says, “the sufferings of this present age
are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that will be revealed in
us.” In a word, superabundance. When the true God works, his visitation and victory are unexpected,
unlooked for; and when they do arrive, they arrive with the force and
perfection of his very Godhead to show that to him alone pertains the glory.
All this applies equally to the
personal victories we hope for in our spiritual lives. Therefore, Please God, we
can beg for the grace of a supernatural faith, a faith that is always averting
to things beyond this world, and trusts everything from God with confidence.
That way, in our prayers for peace and for the Church, we will not become
world-weary, but rather, allow our footsteps along the way be broad and strong.
As our offertory antiphon prays: “Enlighten my eyes, that I may never sleep in
death, lest at any time my enemy say: I have prevailed against him.”
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