Three Storms

Asking what God wants us to do in the midst of storms

08/26/2018

John 6:60-69 Many of Jesus' disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father." As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?" Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

In seminary I discovered that discerning a priestly vocation has far more to do with asking the right question than it does with finding the right answer. I had already been in seminary for three years and up until then I was asking myself whether I wanted to be a priest. That is not a bad question, but it is not the best question. Then for the first time I asked another question: Does God want me to be a priest? Can you catch the difference between the two questions? It is like the difference between building a house on sand (doing my will which shifts) and building one on rock (doing God’s will which is solid). Once I understood that God wanted me to be a priest, instead of just something I wanted, I found myself standing on the rock of my vocation. Henceforth, nothing could change my decision or my destiny because that would require God to change his mind. And God has not done that yet, nor is he likely to.

The reason we build on rock is because sooner or later storms will buffet our house. Let me describe three big spiritual storms that I believe we all experience in every Christian vocation. By the way, each starts with the letter “b” so they are easy to remember:  they are boredom, betrayal and bewilderment. I am convinced we will weather these spiritual storms if we ask the right question, namely, what does God want me to do?

The first storm is boredom. If I had a dollar for every time someone complained: “I am bored at Mass!” we would never need another collection in church! When buffeted by boredom some Catholics conveniently convert to other churches hoping to find engagement and entertainment. I do not mean to criticize the worship services of other churches, but I do want to invite Catholics to ask themselves a question before they jump ship, out of the Bark of St. Peter, the Catholic Church: What does God want me to do?

Sometimes, God wants us to be a little bored with the Lord. What do I mean? In a society that incessantly seeks stimulation – phones, video games, social media – the prospect of peaceful and quiet reflection seems almost scary. Psalm 46:10 gently suggests: “Be still and know that I am God.” When we would rather be stimulated than be still we forget who is God – we begin to think we are God – and we substitute our will for his. Frankly I have a hard time believing God tells any Catholic to leave the Church because it is boring. We can withstand the buffeting of boredom by asking a question: What does God want me to do?

The second storm is betrayal. I believe we all feel deeply betrayed by the priests who perpetrated the unspeakable crime of child sexual abuse. Please know that we Catholic priests are just as appalled as everyone else, although some people may not believe that. A priest friend of mine was in a grocery store in Pennsylvania and a lady saw him in his priest-collar and yelled, “You child rapist!” In some people’s minds all Catholic priests are now guilty until proven innocent, the opposite of the basic assumption of a just society, that someone is “innocent until proven guilty.” Of course, we priests and bishops have been our own worst enemies by both perpetrating the crime and then covering it up. That is why justice must be taken out of our hands. Our current diocesan policy states that anyone who has a reasonable suspicion of child abuse should report that to local law enforcement authorities, not to the pastor or the bishop. Betrayal by the clergy is the biggest storm brewing in the Catholic Church today.

The storm of betrayal has caused a lot of damage. Some Catholics have left the Church, some refuse to support the church financially, and some parents will never let their sons step foot in a seminary, the eye of the storm. Such choices are understandable and I sympathize with them. But I also invite you to ask yourself: what does God want me to do in the midst of this storm? I have seen many Catholics actually dig deeper in their faith and realize they stand on the rock of Jesus Christ. Faithful Catholics rally and respond when the Church is attacked – this time attacked by her own priests – to defend her because she is the beautiful Bride of Christ, and she is the stalwart ship, the Bark of St. Peter. That ship will never sink, and God is not asking any Catholic to abandon ship.

The third storm is bewilderment. I don’t know about you but many mysteries of faith baffle and bewilder me, such as monogamous marriage (no wonder I never got married), baptism of babies, the most Holy Trinity, how mere men can forgive sins, the audacious authority of the pope, and maybe the most marvelous mystery of all is the Mass, the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ under the appearances of mere bread and wine. What do we do when we behold all these beautiful and blinding facets of our faith and struggle and stammer to accept and articulate them? We do what St. Peter did in the gospel: he asked a question. Jesus explained the Eucharist in John 6, and Peter, clearly bewildered by it all like everyone else, asked: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” In other words, Peter did not rely on his own wisdom or seek his own will, but only God’s. He was among the few who were faithful because he asked a question not because he had all the answers. Christians struggling to stay afloat in a storm at sea need to be buoyed by the life-raft of a question rather than weighed down by the heavy anchors of more answers.

I know this was a somewhat somber and serious sermon – sorry, no jokes today! But I have not felt like laughing a lot lately. Christians surrounded by spiritual storms need to remember what I learned in the seminary: one question is worth more than a hundred answers, namely, what does God want me to do? That question becomes like a compass that can chart a course through the storms of life and at last land us on the shores of Paradise.

Praised be Jesus Christ!