Listen To Christ Always

Nineteenth Sunday in Course Year A 2023

St. Paul had a big problem. He’s putting together the first real systematic theology of salvation in his letter to the Church at Rome, but he’s run into a wall. Paul is a Jew, an observant Jew, but he has come to believe in Jesus as Son of God and Messiah of Israel. When he comes to a new town, he goes to the synagogue on Sabbat and usually preaches, delving back into Torah and the prophets to show the love of God, but then claiming Jesus is the looked for Messiah. His listeners sometimes believe–these are usually Gentiles who believe in the One God–but oftentimes do not. After all, Paul is preaching that a Galilean carpenter executed for treason by the Romans is the promised One of God? Jesus violated every Jewish expectation. He was supposed to be victorious over the Romans, not to be tried and put to death. It was all too much. And it was too easy to deny the many miracles of Christ, even His resurrection, because Paul’s listeners had not experienced any of that themselves. Paul’s problem: the very people Jesus came to save first of all generally would not believe and enter His Church.

That caused much sadness in the apostle’s heart. I understand myself. As an American of Irish descent, son of countless generations of Irish Catholics, I read all the time of the apostasy of Ireland’s citizens, essentially abandoning their Christian heritage. A people whose fidelity to faith ultimately reconverted the barbarians of Europe to Christ is adopting contraception and abortion and has largely abandoned the practice of the faith.

And we all can feel something like Paul’s feelings about our own country. The abortion business people are picking off the states one-by-one. They circulate a vague petition, get on the ballot, and then get 50% plus one vote to codify baby-killing before birth into the state constitution. As a nation we are abandoning the moral law written into our hearts by God. It’s almost too much to hear it without weeping.

Thus was Elijah; thus were the apostles. Elijah is running from government assassins. He is on the mountain, but it’s taken forty days of desert wandering to get there. He is waiting for God to reveal Himself. The apostles are in a boat–that’s the symbol of the Church in the NT–and a storm threatens to swamp them. Elijah does not hear God in fire, earthquake and tornado. No, but in almost silence. The apostles find God to be present in their leader, their rabbi, walking on the water. In chaos, we are prone to run around madly looking for something like a fire hose. But Christ is not a fire hose. He is the very presence of God in our midst, and He usually speaks to us very quietly. “Peace, be still,” He commands the wind and waves and our own minds and hearts. Let’s listen to Him always, not just in crises.