A few days late and under pressure

I am a few days behind.  I was hiking with a group from my new job & parish.  I have to run in a few moments, but I want to follow through with what is my intention: to read, reflect and write on Each Sunday's readings.

So here we go...Double time.

"Lord, Let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation."

The words of the Psalm are what stand out to me in these readings.  Although the 1Kings reading is one of my favorite in Scripture, the idea "seeing" God's kindness & recognizing salvation draws me into tender and developing ideas.  Each reading, to me is about the struggle to find's God's work and presence in baffling circumstances: a silent whisper vs. an earthquake, God's new covenant vs. a covenant that seems to leave one's own people behind, & during the fourth watch of the night...

It sounds Cliche' to repeat but God works in mysterious ways.  A version more true to my life is God works in scary ways - but then repeatedly invites  me to, in fact, not BE afraid.  The only way I can imagine and have overcome that fear is with courage, trepidation and humble faith that I am not crazy.  I am seeing God's kindness and invitation to do what might seem as impossible as walking on water.

I can relate with the ambitious-young Peter in the Gospel story.  After Feeding the Five Thousand, Jesus’ closest friends got in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee.  Christ met them later in the middle of the sea amidst a great storm.  Peter did not know it, but he was going to learn how to swim.  Peter’s experience on the water sounds a lot like my discernment to enter religious life, initial formation and this time of grieving and starting over after leaving.  Every step I have taken during my vocation story seemed to be one thing but turned out to be another. 

At this point in my life, I feel a little like Peter on the hull of the ship.  What do I do know?  This is not what I thought was going to happen when I got in this boat! I had different plans! 

The only way I can make sense of this whole sequence of experiences and events is to look back and try see God in the whispers and small choices I made.  I sure didn’t plan it this way.  Every step I took made sense moving in the direction I intended: to earn a college degree with the best financial aid package, to study what I loved, to have an adventure in a new city, return with a master’s degree, be an urban monk/street priest, fall in love.  How I entered the Novitiate with the Franciscan Friars, had my heart broken again, left the order and have been given a bounty of opportunity during my grieving is a little miracle.  As much as I have studied, I forgot how God can act in people’s lives.  I am still afraid though.

 

In Matthew’s Gospel, I think Christ knew Peter was going to sink.  And I think Peter just thought he was going to Galilee.  Like Peter must have, I constantly have to look back and reflect how far I have come and the miracles that persuaded me to drop my nets and get on a boat called religious life.  I am not going to lie to you.  The winds have been strong and waves high, at times. I have never been so happy or so sad in my life.

The moments that Christ has come, and continues to come, to me in my discernment doesn’t feel like it used to on dry land, so to speak.  It is different now.  So little of this makes any human sense – until you are with a group of humans who have had similar experiences and who have chosen to test the waters.  As for me.  I am all wet.  I am going to meet Christ, for the same reason I got in the boat.  I don't want to be afraid anymore.

Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.  But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”  Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”(Mt. 14:29-31 NAB)