A Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a Romans 9:1-5 Matthew 14:22-33
It was the second storm of the day. My former secretary and good friend forwarded me a text from her daughter-in-law. It explained in more detail what we had discussed the day before, the bittersweet birth of her newest granddaughter:
Kate was born at 11:18am on 7/22/26. She has a genetic abnormality with multiple areas of her body affected. Major concerns are a small/recessed jaw that is obstructing her airway. Right now, she is on a CPAP machine that uses air pressure to keep her airway open. The CPAP is allowing her to breathe and preventing the airway from collapsing on itself.
She also has abnormalities on her spinal cord and her heart, which will need further evaluation.
Overarching concern is figuring out what genetic conditioning is happening, which might help explain her current symptoms and predict her course. We just met with one of her overseeing doctors and Kate had an okay night. There were a few episodes where she stopped breathing, but she recovered. They are thinking about starting her on breast milk feeds today, instead of getting all her nutrition through her IV.
The day’s first storm hardly seems worth sharing. At some point, perhaps right after awakening from a nap, I had experienced a deflating sense of purposelessness and fear. The feeling was instantaneous, though here are the ingredients: I’m an old man whose life is a failure. At every turn, I’ve disappointed God and everyone else. My death, like my life, won’t matter to anyone.
Ancient Christians monks called this feeling “the noon day devil.” Mentioned in Psalm 91, it is common in the second half of life and certainly not exclusive to priests. It passed on quickly enough, for three reasons.
First, I have met this demon many times. Second, I had work to do. And third, two weeks earlier, on vacation with a priest classmate, I mentioned something similar. The evil imp lost so much of his power over me when my classmate laconically responded, “Me too! More and more, the older I grow.”
To my credit, I took the agere contra advice of St. Ignatius of Loyola. I acted against the desolation, meeting it with a movement towards God. I chose to begin my holy hour a bit earlier than usual, and I prayed in front of the Blessed Sacrament rather than outdoors.
Two storms drove me there. One was shared. The other, all my own. They had this in common. I could not explain adequately what was happening to baby Kate or me, why God permits such things. I could accept both, especially my own little tempest. But I was unsettled by both. “Is this all I’m supposed to do? Is this all I can do? Kneel here and wait for you to respond?”
A Mexican American man, probably my age, entered the church. Greeting me with a smile and nod, he took his place three pews ahead of me. I presume he was on his way home from work. I did not recognize him from Sunday Mass.
I was “doing my thing,” somewhat reluctantly but with a growing sense of acceptance, when I heard heated petitions rising from the front of the church. This man was pleading with God, quietly but audibly. I could not make out what he was saying. He was several pews removed, he was not that loud and he was crying.
Storms had brought both of us to church, but I had the sense that neither of us were strangers to squalls, that we had both been here before, at this spot in life. I, sitting in silence, and he, kneeling and explaining himself to God in tears. For all I know, he is there every day. He and the Lord were certainly going at it as though they had both been there many times before.
We liken the troubles of life to storms, and rightly so. We do not know how severe they will be or when their effects will fade. We must simply suffer them.
The church—I mean the community more than the building, though both, in their way, apply—is like a storm shelter. We are driven here, seeking God. We do find him here. We also find each other. To quote the Bard:
When shall we three meet again,
in thunder, lightning, or in rain? (Macbeth I.1.1-2)
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