Sunday 13 June

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The readings today remind us that poetic imagery is an apt way of describing the mysterious presence of God in our midst.  The cedar began as a seedling that takes years to grow into a magnificent tree.  The same is true of the mustard tree.  It too requires time to develop its trunk and branches.  The development of moral integrity in a human being is just as gradual.  Rooted in God, it flourishes in God's presence and it produces fruit even into old age.  Although God is present in all things, sustaining them and allowing them to follow their natural courses, God really transcends all things.  Metaphorical language may be the best means for speaking about God and the things of God.  It enables us to live in the tension that both reveals something about God and conceals God's real nature.

The reign of God also begins in very ordinary circumstances, and it matures gradually until it has spread itself far and wide.  Although the mystery of the reign of God unfolds within human history, we need eyes of faith to recognise it.  Like the cedar and the mustard seed, it grows within the concreteness of human experience.  Just as the life force that thrusts the branches of the trees further and further out cannot itself be seen, so the reign of God is mysterious, even incomprehensible.  Still, it is there, inviting us, urging us to move forward, transforming our world.

© Dianne Bergant CSA

Sunday 20 June

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Paul insists that the love of Christ completely transforms us, mind and heart.  No longer do we judge according to human standards.  No longer do we meet injury with assault.   No longer do we relegate people to the margins of society, or hoard the goods that others need to survive.  Everything is changed in this new worldview.  We understand ourselves and our world differently.  Most importantly, we perceive God differently. 

Job’s new insights enlightened his understanding of creation, of the Creator, and of himself, a finite creature.   Several of the disciples were seasoned fishermen.  They knew that sea quite well.  Living close to Jesus, they knew him too.  Now they saw him in a different light.  In both cases, faith opened their eyes. Like the disciples, we begin to realise that this man who shares in all of our human vulnerability is able to direct the power of the Creator.

We need eyes of faith to recognise the power of God at work in the events of our lives. Like Job, faith moves us from viewing God as a deity who is so distant from us that the circumstances of our lives appear to be irrelevant, to realising that everything is ultimately in God's hands and everything follows the course on which God has set it.  For our part, all we can or need do is entrust ourselves to this loving God who cares if even a sparrow falls to the ground.

© Dianne Bergant CSA