20th Sunday Year A (Matthew 15:21-28) God's answer to prayer

 

I think one of the frustrating aspects of prayer is that we often don’t seem to get an answer, or at least hear an answer. We are praying for something important, but God doesn’t seem to be listening, or is indifferent. Could this be true? Of course not. Jesus himself says, ‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you’ (Matt 7:7). ‘Ask and it will be given to you.’ They are Jesus’ own words. That means that God always answers our prayers, but maybe not in the way we want, or in a way we recognize.

 

In this Gospel, Jesus does something which is uncharacteristic of him. At first he seems to ignore this woman who is looking for his help, because she is a pagan, not one of the Jewish people. He does answer her, but not with words. It says, ‘He answered her, not a word’. He did answer, but he didn’t use words. His appearing to ignore her, drew out her faith. It made her persist and even be daring and he acknowledges her faith.

 

A man called Marino Restrepo, from Columbia, grew up in a wealthy Catholic family, but in his teens drifted away from his faith until he no longer practiced at all. He was a talented musician and artist and became very successful in Hollywood as a producer and director. He lived a very sinful life, with non-stop affairs and drugs, seducing other women and being seduced and also introducing other people to drugs. He also got heavily involved in New Age practices, leading him farther and farther away from God.

 

On Christmas of 1997 he went back to Columbia to visit his family. His four sisters, who were still practicing Catholics, got him to go to church for Christmas, even though he no longer believed. It had been 33 years since he had been in a Catholic church. One of the devotions there, was a novena to the Infant Jesus of Prague. It began on December 16^th and concluded on Christmas Eve. He heard the priest say that anyone who prayed this novena with devotion, would receive a grace. This caught his attention, but not in a religious way; in a greedy and superstitious way. He figured that he might be able to get something out of this prayer. So he prayed to the Infant Jesus of Prague, that Jesus would change his life: that he would be able to retire with a lot of money and live like a king with at least three women on an Indonesian island he had seen in pictures. That is exactly what he asked for.

 

The day after the novena ended, which was Christmas day, he celebrated with friends and family. That night we went to visit an uncle on his plantation. When he arrived at the gates, he found they were shut, which surprised him. The he suddenly found himself surrounded by six masked men, who dragged him out of his car and took him away. They drove for a long time and then made him run through the jungle for hours. He had been captured by FARC rebels, who hoped to get a large ransom from his family. He spent the next six months tied up in a cave in the jungle. He very died from malnutrition and he was also being tortured psychologically.

 

Marino Restreppo

One night, during this nightmarish ordeal, he had a very powerful spiritual experience. He had an illumination of conscience (see the book The Warning, by Christine Watkins, for the full story, pp 183-212). The Lord showed him his soul and his whole life up to that point, everything he had done, every choice for or against God. It lasted about eight hours. He says it was a very frightening experience, because he had been living such a sinful and worldly life for so long. The Lord allowed him to see that if he had died at that moment, he would have gone to hell, because this was what he had already chosen by the way he was living. Needless to mention, the experience had a profound effect on him.

 

Six months after he was kidnapped, he was unexpectedly released. He didn’t know why. Physically and emotionally he was in terrible shape, but he survived and gradually recovered his health. From then on he completely changed his life. He sold his apartment in Manhattan, quit his job in production and began to live a much simpler and more prayerful life. He has dedicated the rest of his life to sharing his story and has travelled all over the world.

 

FARC Rebels

Why am I telling you his story? Apart from the fact that it is an amazing story, he prayed that God would change his life and allow him to retire with great wealth, etc. God did answer his prayer and changed his life, but not in the way he could ever have imagined.

 

The answers we get when we pray for things, may not be what we wanted and sometimes we may not even recognize the answer until years later, but Jesus assures us that He always answers us. ‘The one who asks always receives. The one who searches always finds and the one who knocks will always have the door opened.’ (Matt 7:8).

 

 Often God’s silence, which can be so frustrating, can be the very thing that helps us to grow in prayer. If we got everything we asked for instantly, would we grow spiritually? Probably not. But when we have to strive and persevere for it, we grow.

 

You don’t give your children everything they ask for, instantly, because you know that it can often do them more harm than good. You see a bigger picture when you are older. God sees the whole picture and knows what will help us and what will not. The answers we get may be silence, but God does answer us.

 

St. Monica, prayed for 33 years for the conversion of her son Augustine. He eventually became a Catholic, then a priest, then a bishop and today he is recognized as one of the great saints of our Church. St. Monica had great faith and never gave up. If the Lord had answered her instantly the first time she prayed, would her faith have grown as much? Probably not.  

 

A Canaanite woman of that district came out and called, ‘

Have pity on me Lord, Son of David. My daughter is tormented by a demon.’

But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.

19th Sunday Year A (Gospel: Matthew 14:22-23) God in the gentle breeze is subtle and easy to miss

 

Every time I have moved from one place to another like here, it always makes me think about the priesthood and what my work is about. To me the greatest privilege of being a priest is that I can bring Jesus to people in the Eucharist, wherever I am sent. This is the most important part of any priest’s work. Everything else is secondary, because the greatest gift the Lord has given us, is the gift of himself, of his body and blood in the holy Eucharist. I am sure there are at least two reasons why He gives it to us. First, because He wants to be intimately part of our lives and everything we do. Second, because God knows how much we need his strength to make it through this life, which is difficult at the best of times and so He gives us his very self, which we can receive into our own bodies, every day if we wish. If we really believe this, then we can never say that we are on our own. The Lord is saying, ‘You are not on your own. I am here with you every step of the way.’

 

For the most part God’s presence among us is very subtle. It is easy to miss it and many people do miss it, thinking that God is not there at all. Think of how many people pass by a church each day and really believe that the body and blood of Jesus Christ is present there? Probably very few. The Lord seems to keep himself hidden from us.

 

The first reading about the prophet Elijah refers to this. Elijah is considered the greatest of the prophets and a man very close to God. God wanted to let him experience his presence and so He sent him to this cave on the mountain side. Then there was a great storm-force wind, something we can relate to in Florida. But it says that God was not in the storm. Then there was an earthquake and then a fire, all great signs of the power of nature which can be so frightening. The powers of nature remind us how small we are and how helpless, but it says that God wasn’t in these either. And then a very gentle breeze, or whispering sound and God’s presence was there. In some translations it says, ‘A still small, voice,’ something you could easily miss.

 

Why did God send the storm, the earthquake and the fire? I think that God is reminding us that his presence is very subtle and easy to miss, but just because God doesn’t come to us in the form of thunder and lightning, or something very dramatic, doesn’t mean that He is not there. How did Elijah know God was there in the gentle breeze? Because he was used to listening to God and he was able to recognize God’s presence. If he wasn’t paying attention, or only focused on what was dramatic, he could have missed it.

 

The powers of nature can be very frightening, as we know from hurricanes. But God is reminding us not to be focused on what is loud and dramatic, as that is not where we will find him. God is just as powerfully present, but we will not notice his voice unless we stop and listen. That is why it is good to try and be quiet when you come to the church before mass. We are about to encounter the all-powerful God, but we may not notice his presence if we are just talking. It is the same after we have received Communion. Try and be silent and listen. And it is not that we are listening for a message, or word, rather that we are being aware that we are in his presence. If we don’t stop and listen, we can miss it.

 

Then we have the wonderful image of the storm in the Gospel. Jesus comes walking across the water toward them. You can imagine how terrifying it would be to see someone walking on water if you were out at sea. Anyone would think it was a ghost. Then after asking Jesus to invite him to come across the water, Peter really does walk on water. I think that is the part that is easy to forget. Peter did walk on water, but when he took his focus off Jesus, he began to think rationally and that this couldn’t be happening and then he began to sink.

 

Just that event is a great image for what is happening around us. We are in a time of turmoil, with swirling clouds and stormy seas. All we hear about is the chaos and how terrible the world is and it feels like we are sinking. But the Lord is telling us to focus on him, not on the storm. When Peter focused on Jesus, he did what we say is impossible. As soon as he took his focus off Jesus and back to what was happening around him, he began to sink. The Lord is reminding us to do the same. If we focus only on the storm around us, with all the negative voices of the media, telling us of the terrible things happening in our world, we will become overwhelmed and we will sink. If we focus on the Lord, we will see something completely different.

 

It is heartbreaking to see so much suicide around us, but I have no doubt that is at least partly because people have lost faith and they don’t know where to turn. As a result they become overwhelmed with the world and despair. What they need is what we have: Jesus. In St. John’s Gospel Jesus says ‘In the world you will have trouble, but do not be afraid, I have conquered the world’ (John 16:33). He didn’t say we would have it easy, but He tells us to stay focused on him and then we will get through whatever we have to face. He is not asking us to do it by ourselves, but with his strength.

 

Sometimes I think that it might be easier if the Lord’s presence was more dramatic. Then we would have no doubt about God being there. It would probably be terrifying, but for whatever reason, the Lord prefers to stay hidden from us. His coming to us in Holy Communion is a great example of this. How much more hidden can you get? Who would believe that God comes to us in a tiny piece of bread? It sounds completely crazy and to many people it is crazy, indeed too crazy to be true, but this is what Jesus himself has taught us and that is why we believe it is true. It is the Lord himself who has taught us this.

 

Perhaps when you come up to receive Holy Communion today, think of the gentle breeze that passed in front of the prophet Elijah. God was in that gentle breeze. Jesus is also present to us here in the tiny host of bread that we receive, which has become his Body and Blood. That’s also why we should try and receive it with the greatest reverence. It is not a symbol; it is the Body of Christ. That’s also why you should never walk away with it, but consume it when it is given to you and then listen for the still small voice.

 

To help us believe, the Lord keeps giving us signs and wonders. So many Eucharistic miracles. Here is just one.

 

In the church of St. Francis of Assisi in Siena, Italy, in 1730, on the eve of the feast of the Assumptio, someone stole a ciborium from the tabernacle, which contained hundreds of hosts. As you can imagine people were very upset and searched everywhere for the hosts. The following day a lady in another church noticed some hosts sticking out of one of the poor boxes. They opened it and found the hosts. By now the hosts were dirty and covered in cobwebs. So they decided to leave them in a container to decay naturally. However, after several months they were still perfectly preserved and still smelled fresh. Today, almost 300 years later, they are still perfectly preserved and in a glass container for everyone to see.

 

Eucharistic miracles continue to happen all over the world right up to today. Many of them are where the host has actually turned into a piece of flesh. Scientific studies have shown each time that it is real human heart tissue, always with blood type AB. One of the more recent ones in Buenos Aires in 1996, showed that it was real human heart tissue, from the left ventricle of the heart and it was taken from a man who was under extreme stress, or badly beaten. The crucifixion.

 

After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.

When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak

and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.

 

18th Sunday, Yr A (Gospel: Matthew 14:13-21) The need to forgive

 

 

One of the things that seems to cause the most division that people so often tell me about in confession, is bitterness in families over things like wills, where land or money has been left to someone and others in the family feel hard done by; sometimes over children who won’t forgive parents for their mistakes, or parents who won’t forgive their children, but especially over wills. It is very sad, but it is amazing how much of it exists. We decide that we can’t forgive, or won’t forgive, because we have been hurt too deeply. Unforgiveness is probably the single biggest obstacle to God’s helping us in this life. If I refuse to forgive someone, I am preventing the Lord from helping me, because this is one thing that the Lord tells us to do. 

 

No doubt all of us here expect to be forgiven by God when we die. That’s what our faith teaches us. It’s what we talk about all the time, but I wonder do all of us feel that we also have to forgive those who have wronged us. This is exactly what the Lord tells us we must do, if we hope to be forgiven ourselves. We say it every time we pray the Our Father: ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ There are also many parables that Jesus used to emphasize this.

 

Peter asked Jesus, ‘Lord how many times must I forgive my brother? As many as seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.’ In other words, as long as someone asks my forgiveness I must forgive them.

 

Jesus then went on to give this parable:

There was a king who was settling accounts with his servants. (Matthew 18:21-35). One servant could not pay the debt and begged for time. The king was sorry for him and forgave the whole debt when he asked for mercy. But then that same man went out and refused to forgive one of his debtors a much smaller amount. When the king found out he was furious and condemned the servant for his lack of mercy and threw him in jail until he pay the whole debt. And Jesus finishes with the words, ‘And that is how my heavenly Father will treat you, unless you forgive your brother from your heart.’ (Matthew 18:35).

 

There is also a common misunderstanding to do with forgiveness, and it is this: many people have the idea that in order to forgive someone who has hurt them, they must feel like forgiving them. In other words they must have got to the point where they no longer feel the hurt, and so therefore they can forgive. That is not how it works. If most of us were to wait until we actually felt like forgiving someone who has hurt us, we would probably never forgive? This is where people get stuck: forgiveness is not based on how you feel, but is a decision of the will. I choose to forgive someone, because the Lord asks me to; and by doing that I then open the door to allow the Lord to begin to help me get over the hurt. Or to put it the other way around: if I refuse to forgive someone, I am preventing God from helping me to be healed of the hurt. I will not begin to heal as long as the unforgiveness remains.

 

‘Lord I forgive John, please bless him and help me to heal.’ When we decide to forgive, we are not saying that what happened no longer matters, or that it wasn’t wrong, or that we no longer feel the pain. We are choosing to forgive the person, so that we can heal. We are letting go of the resentment. We may have to say those words many more times throughout our life, but as long as we do, then we will begin to heal. If I refuse to forgive someone, I become consumed with the hurt, the resentment and anger. It eats away at me like a cancer. I am the one who suffers. We may feel that by refusing to forgive, we are punishing the other person. The truth is they may not even be aware of the hurt you are carrying. I am the one who is suffering and the key to healing is in my hands.

 

The deeper the hurt, the harder it is to forgive and the Lord knows that. That is why Jesus spoke about it so many times. When the Apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He gave them the Our Father. The Our Father is a way of praying, not just a prayer and two lines of it are to do with forgiveness. ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ If we expect to be forgiven, we too must forgive.

 

It is a terrible thing to meet someone in the later years of their life who has refused to forgive. You can see it in their face. They are angry and bitter and they are not at peace. That is not what the Lord wants for any of us and so He shows us the way out. The key is in our own hands.

 

When I find myself angry with someone, it usually means I need to forgive them. I doubt if there is anyone who doesn’t need to forgive someone. So many of the stories people tell me, are about serious injustices. The bigger the wrong we have experienced the harder it is to forgive. But remind yourself, it is not about how I feel. It is a decision.

 

St. Maria Goretti, one of the youngest saints in the Church, died at the age of 11 in 1902, just before her 12^th birthday. Her father died when she was very young and as a result her family ended up having to hire themselves out as farm hands. They also had to share a house with a man and his two sons, the Serenellis. They were into very sinful living. One of the sons, Alessandro, kept trying to seduce her, even though she was so young, but she continually resisted. One day he arranged it so that she would be home alone when he was there. He tried to rape her, but she resisted, crying out that it would be a sin and offend God. In his frustration he stabbed her 15 times. She lived for another 24 hours while they tried to save her. During those 24 hours she said that she forgave him because she said, ‘I want him to be in heaven too.’ Alessandro was given a life sentence.

 

For the first three years he was completely unrepentant and bragged about what he had done. But three years after her murder, she appeared to him in a dream and gave him 15 lilies. As he took each lily, it burnt his hand and disappeared. He realized that each one represented each of the times that he had stabbed her and that she had forgiven him. From then on, he became deeply repentant, so much so that he was eventually let out of prison early (after 27 years) because of his exemplary behaviour.

 

After he was released he went to her mother to beg her forgiveness. His mother said to him, ‘If Maria can forgive you, then I must forgive you too.’ I can’t imagine the grief and anger that her mother must have gone through, but she forgave Alessandro and I have no doubt that will have brought her peace and set her free. Alessandro and her mother Assunta, were both present at Maria’s canonization in 1950. Alessandro spent the rest of his life working in a monastery.

 

Many times, after some of these terrible shootings where multiple people are killed, I have seen family members cursing and screaming at the killer in court. Their anger is very understandable. But sometimes you also see family members, usually parents, with extraordinary courage, saying through their tears that they forgive the killer. They will have to live with the pain of losing their child, but they have also set themselves free from the hatred that otherwise would consume them.

 

There is a tradition attributed to a tribe in South America, I believe. If someone is murdered and they catch the killer, he is tied to a barrel and thrown into a river, or lake. The family can let him drown, or save him. Revenge would make you want to let him drown. But if they save him, it sets them free of hatred and bitterness. Great wisdom.

When I am dying, will the injustices carried out against me still matter? Will I still refuse to forgive? We will not get into heaven until we forgive those who have wronged us and that is why it is so important. The key to healing is in our own hands, but it is a decision, not a feeling.

 

‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’