Tuesday of the 18th Week in Course: St. John Vianney
I’d like you to get out of your wallet or picture in your mind a hologram. You know, it’s the image imprinted on many credit cards to help merchants validate them. You look at it from different directions and it looks three-dimensional. Holograms have a special property. They are repositories of information which can be read by laser-based machines. If you cut them into pieces, though, each piece contains the same information as the whole. At least that’s what I was taught back in school.
Now the Scriptures are like a hologram in that way. Each book of the Scriptures, written by different people in different times and places, really gives a different look at the same message. It’s the message that the Blessed Trinity wants to share with every land and people, with all generations of human beings. The message is about the love that God has for us, that God is pazzo d’amore–crazy in love–with the human race and with each one of us individually.
So we look at the stories of Jesus with His disciples. They are constantly, it seems, at odds with the Master and the Master’s plan. But the Scriptures record that they did grow in faith, and hope, and charity. And that growth generally came about because of some trouble or crisis in their lives. I find that in my life, my spiritual growth and that of my family seems to happen when we are faced with a sickness or other problem. Catholics don’t seem to grow very well when they are fat and happy, because we get complacent.
So Jesus has had a big day of preaching and healing, and needs refreshment. But the refreshment of Our Lord comes in prayer to the Father, frequently on a local mountain. He sent the apostles across the Sea of Galilee in a boat, which had sails and a few oars. The wind in Galilee, funneled east by the hills on the west of the lake, can get pretty strong, so they are struggling. Around midnight they see Jesus walking on the water, and are convinced it’s an evil spirit. They cried out in fear. But Jesus says, as He says to us frequently if we will listen, “Do not be afraid. It is I.”
Peter, never one to ignore an opportunity to show his impulsiveness, asks Jesus to summon him to His side, and Jesus simply says, “Come.” Peter begins to walk toward Jesus, but the wind was still strong, and his faith was not firm. So the water, which is never firm, sucked him down, and Peter cried, “Master, save me.” Jesus does save him, rebukes his lack of faith, and calms the gale. Their faith is strengthened by what was almost a catastrophe, and why did that happen? It happened because they came close to Our Lord, and believed in Him, and even, here, for the first time, profess that He is the Son of God. Those they ministered to even found healing by touching His garment.
Catholic faith has from the beginning been sacramental. That is, we know the power of God, in healing, forgiveness, nourishment, through physical objects and human actions. Grace, divine life, comes to us through water, bread and wine, oil, and physical touch by laying on of hands, making the sign of the cross. In so many ways the spiritual world connects to us through word and sacrament. So in times of crisis, in plagues and wars and economic disaster, we are called by God to minister to each other in this way, and to come to church, to the assembly of God’s people, to pray together, and, yes, even to lament and moan together. Whatever causes us to see our own weakness and plead for God’s power to work in that infirmity is God’s call to us. We must respond if we are to be true to our baptismal promises.
Saint John Vianney, whom we venerate today, is truly a saint for our time. He was mentally weak and realized it. But in his weakness he always turned to Our Lord and His Blessed Mother. Moreover, like Jeremiah preaching to his people about their sin, Father John did not hold back from convicting his parish in Ars, France, for their individual and corporate sin. And God used him to bring them back. We read, almost without belief, of him hearing confessions not for one or two hours, but for ten and twelve hours a day. And he had a gift of discernment so that he could know when a sinner was holding out on God, not confessing all his sins. We surely need that brand of priest today, so let’s all pray for men to listen to God and respond to the call to ministry, especially to the holy priesthood. Saint John Vianney, pray for us.
