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This
past
week there was a story in the news about two men in a small
airplane flying over the wilderness in New Zealand.
The plane was running out of fuel
and a rocky
ridge loomed up ahead of them. As the
plane’s engine sputtered, both the pilot and his companion began to
pray aloud
and in earnest to God that they would somehow make it over this ridge
and find
a safe landing place on the other side.
As they prayed, the aircraft’s engine seemed to find one more gulp of
gasoline and came back to life just long enough to gain them a little
altitude. Then they hit an updraft and
the rising air currents pushed the little airplane up just high enough
to fly
safely over the ridge. As they flew over
the ridge, the men looked down and saw a flat, cleared area that turned
out to
be a deserted missionary outpost that no longer showed up on any of
their
maps. The plane glided in to a safe
landing and rolled to a stop at an old battered signpost. The two
men got out of the plane and promptly
fell to their knees as they read the words still visible on the sign:
“Jesus is
Lord.” And he had far exceeded their
expectations.
Stories
like this are real faith
strengtheners. They let us know that Our Lord is with us and
looks after us, and that through prayer and faith we have ready access
to him
24/7/365, whether we are safely warm in bed or about to die in a plane
crash. Throughout the gospel accounts of
Jesus’ walk on earth, the recurring theme is that the lame walk, the
blind see,
and the demons are cast out when the Lord is asked from a searching,
sincere
heart – that’s prayer. And, when there
is absolute trust in him – that’s faith.
When we reach out to Jesus in faith through prayer and he answers, we
are confronted with our faults and shortcomings; we see the error of
our
unbelief and we suddenly know that our lack of trust in him has
resulted in the
sinful state in which we find ourselves.
Like in the old comic strip, Pogo,
“We
have met the enemy, and
he
is us!” And
so it is that when we
reach out to Jesus through the distress of our sin and find the true
healing
that is only available through true faith in him, his answer to us is
the
familiar words he speaks in the New Testament, “Your faith has healed
you. Go and sin no more.” And so the crashing plane of our
earthly
existence is righted and stabilized, and we taxi right up to that sign
that
says, “Jesus is Lord.” And like those
two guys in New Zealand,
we should fall to our knees and offer him the thanks that are his due,
for he
has far exceeded our expectations.
Many times we have heard
people lament, “Why does a loving God allow bad
things to happen to good people.”
Perhaps the question better asked is, “Why does a just God allow good
things to happen to sinful humankind.”
And the answer is, of course, because he loves us and wants us to be
saved. No prayer goes unanswered, and
though we may not always like the answer we get, it is important to
know that
God does what he does for our eternal good, not our earthly
pleasure.
He does not punish, but he will both put us
through and pull us through painful times so that we come to know his
ways, and
his ways are the ways that bring us to eternal life. God plays
for the long haul, not the short
term. We may get rebellious attitude
when we refuse a teenager that is insisting on going to a wild senior
party
during this time of the year, but the reason is that we want to see him
make it
to graduation. Same with the Lord: He wants to see us
graduate to eternal life
with him in heaven forever, and so, far exceed our expectations.
Sometimes, our prayers
are answered in ways that we don’t expect, and it
is only later, in retrospect, that we truly realize the depth of the
love that
our Father in heaven holds for us. Years
ago, when my dad was dying of a voracious lung cancer that had moved
into his
brain and his bones, my mother, in her desperation for the man she
loved, spent
an entire night in prayer for his deliverance from the ravages of this
horrible
disease. Now, this man was in so much
pain that he could no longer lie down in bed, but spent his nights
fitfully
trying to sleep in his favorite reclining chair. On this night,
as my mother wept and prayed
on her knees in the bedroom, my dad somehow slept quietly and
peacefully in his
chair in the living room. As the first
rays of the morning sun were illuminating the scene, my mom walked out
to check
on my dad and saw the answer to her prayers standing before her in no
uncertain
terms. There was a vision of Jesus
himself standing with his hand upon the head of my father. He
turned, looked at my mother, smiled and
proceeded to vanish into the thin morning air.
She was overjoyed, convinced in that moment that she had witnessed the
great miracle that she had been praying for so intently. However, from
that
time on, my dad’s condition seemed to worsen by the minute, and in two
weeks he
was dead. Only later did my mother
realize that the vision she had seen was indeed a witness to his
healing. But it was a spiritual healing, not a healing
of the physical body. In the years
since, we have taken great comfort in this miracle of spiritual healing
that my
mother saw. As I grow older, I am
grateful to God for healing my father in such a deep and profound way
that I
know that he will be alive in heaven forever.
In the short term, it was painful losing my dad on earth years before
we
wanted him to go. But in the long term
this is far outweighed by knowing that he has gone to be with
God.
And to this day, my mother will tell you that
God’s response to her prayer, painful as it was at the time, far
exceeded her
expectations.
Today on the calendar of
the Church we celebrate the Solemnity of the
Most Holy Body and the Blood of Christ.
It is what we used to call the Feast of Corpus Christi. Its
purpose is to celebrate the way in which
Jesus saved us by offering his life up on the Cross, that we might be
saved by
this miracle of his body broken for our transgressions, and his blood
poured
out for the remission of our sins. It is
that moment on the Cross in which life left his human body so that we
might
become one with him in his spiritual body, the Church, both now on
earth and
forever in heaven. When we gather to
celebrate Holy Communion we do so with the knowledge that Jesus is
present with
us in the elements of the bread and wine, which are miraculously
transformed
into the Real Presence of his spiritual body and blood. It is a
miracle in which time and space
disappear and we are one with the entire Church, both on earth and in
heaven as
we celebrate together the moment of our salvation. And the
message to us is the same as it was
to his disciples on the night of that first Last Supper so long
ago.
It is the same as to those two men in the
airplane in New Zealand,
for we, too, will make it over the ridge and find an unexpected safe
place to
land if we offer our lives to him. For
the message of Jesus Christ remains always the same: “Have faith in me
and I
will far exceed your expectations.”
Thank you and God bless you!
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May 25, 2008
Dt
8:2-3, 14b-16a
Moses said to the people:
"Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God,
has directed all your journeying in the desert,
so as to test you by affliction
and find out whether or not it was your intention
to keep his commandments.
He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna,
a food unknown to you and your fathers,
in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live,
but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.
"Do not forget the LORD, your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
that place of slavery;
who guided you through the vast and terrible desert
with its saraph serpents and scorpions,
its parched and waterless ground;
who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock
and fed you in the desert with manna,
a food unknown to your fathers."
Ps
147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
R. (12) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
1
Cor 10:16-17
Brothers and sisters:
The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break,
is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.
Jn
6:51-58
Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:
"I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world."
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
Jesus said to them,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me
will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever."
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