“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Many parishes in the Diocese of Brooklyn and around the globe have noticed that attendance at Sunday Mass is significantly lower than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are pages in the Bible that keep me awake at night. This Sunday’s reading from the book of Jeremiah is one of those, but I know I am not alone in my deep discomfort about it when I compare the different ways the first verse has been translated.
If newspapers as we know them only date to the 17th Century, how did the earliest followers of Jesus find out what was going on? Had there been such thing as the Nazareth News, it wouldn’t have lasted because very few people of that era knew how to read. So how did the disciples stay on top of things? Simple: word of mouth has never gone out of style!
It takes more than a map or an app to figure out this Sunday’s Gospel reading, which tells us that Jesus “withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.” These were cities on the Mediterranean coast, quite a distance from Gennesaret (on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee), where Jesus and the disciples landed the boat after the eventful crossing about which we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel. It’s a long enough walk to make us wonder what Jesus was up to!
Unfazed by the request, Jesus tells him “come,” and so he does! Yet as Peter walks toward Jesus on the water, the force of the wind frightens him and he begins to sink. “Lord, save me!” he calls out, the first of countless times since that these words have been uttered in prayer! Jesus reaches out to take Peter by the hand, gently asking him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
The human being, the highest and most exalted of God’s creatures, is its own agent in determining its salvation, making use of God’s gifts of free will, rationality, and the sanctifying grace that is actively bestowed upon it. This pathway to eternal life is made accessible through the Redemptive Sacrifice of the Cross, which makes it possible for every human being, past and present, to attain eternal life.
Realizing that we are a constant work- in-progress — and that God is merciful — lays the groundwork for receiving God’s Word as fertile ground that allows the seed to be received, nurtured with the help of God, and grown into fruit that solely gives glory to Almighty God.
Truth be told, as a late 20th-century-born Brooklynite, whenever Jesus uses farming imagery in His teaching, my mind gravitates to a television show that was always on in the Panicali household, whether in original episodes or in reruns: Little House on the Prairie.
Before receiving communion, as the host is elevated and the priests invite us to, “Behold the Lamb of God,” we utter the simple prayer, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. But only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” He knows our unworthiness, but we have to acknowledge it ourselves to appreciate the gift we are about to receive.
Being a people of the Eucharist, this meal is at the center of who we are as a Church. The gathering place for most families is the table and so it is within each parish family, we gather at the altar to feast on Christ’s Body and Blood.
