Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 28 of Season 6 for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary time: August 13, 2023. Our Gospel reading is from Matthew, Chapter 14, verses 22-33.
After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. "It is a ghost," they said, and they cried out in fear.
At once Jesus spoke to them, "Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come." Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"
Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Th ose who were in the boat did him homage, saying, "Truly, you are the Son of God.”The Gospel of the Lord.
“The Sacredness of Silence” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
I think in our more honest moments, we really would prefer that God be more obvious about his presence in our lives, especially how he's acting and what he's desiring of us. This is especially true if we're going through a moment of darkness or crisis and we're reaching out to God for some sense of his presence, some sense of guidance, and direction. Perhaps there is something specifically we want him to intervene with. Someone we love may be going through a struggle.
But sometimes, he seems all too quiet. We look out at our world at the confusion and what is happening around us, and we may even verbalize to God, "God can't you do something to make your presence known, to wake people up so that they can turn to you and believe in who you are?"
Quite often, people struggling with faith will turn away from God because he's not obvious enough for them. They need more tangible proof, something more dramatic, something before them, to convince them, once and for all, that God is real and a vibrant part of their lives.
But God is very quiet. God is very silent and intentionally so. God desires that we come to freely love him, seek him, and be united with him. We can only do this if we discover him on our own without any coercion or obvious intervention.
As you look throughout all of salvation history, all the significant moments of revelation tell the same story and reflect the same truth: that God comes in the whisper.
Consider the creation of the universe, the creation of the world. God breathed over the waters, and life began out of nothing. And out of nothing came something, and all that we see around us from the largest to the smallest. If there were an ear there to hear that first day of creation when life first birthed forth, hardly anything would've been heard, and perhaps it even would've been sheer silence. But in that whisper, in that silence, was great power.
When God chose to create Jesus and become one with us, to bring forth the incarnation, to bless humanity with his presence, to show us that we are divinely sparked and held, he did not do that in the torrent of wind. He didn't do it by shattering the world. But he did it through the birth of a child in the quiet hours of the morning. And that first earthly breath that Jesus took brought the dawn of the incarnation, and humanity would never see itself the same way again. It happened all so quietly in stillness and in simplicity. If someone were to be walking by, they hardly perhaps would've noticed the power of that first earthly breath.
And then Jesus, hanging upon the cross to die for the salvation of the world then, breathes his last, and that last breath that he took brought the dawn of resurrection, the power of salvation upon all of humanity, and the transformation of every soul into the very image of Christ himself. Someone walking by that cross that day hardly would've noticed that last breath and the power that was contained in it.
And then Jesus gives the gift of the Holy Spirit to his disciples. Through the very simple gesture of breath, he bestows upon them the power of energy and life to go forth and proclaim the Good News, to heal the sick, and to baptize and to spread the message of the kingdom of God; A spirit of power, of transformation, and of rebirth in the quietness of a breath.
As we look at God acting throughout history, at first glance, it can seem so empty. Nothing dramatic, and nothing typically spectacular. But yet, in those quiet moments, those simple moments, those sometimes unnoticed moments, is great power. So much power that it changed the course of history changed the way human beings see themselves, and changed the way we see and understand God himself.
And those three special gifts God gives us: the gifts of faith, of hope, and of love, each one emanating from his very presence, all come to us so quietly and so simply. There's nothing dramatic about faith. There's nothing overwhelming about hope, and there's nothing really complicated about love. They all come very simply, very gently through us, but yet each one in its own way has a powerful presence in our lives. And when one clings to those three gifts, they find great depth indeed and drink more deeply of life than before.
And so, God's presence comes so simply, in voices that often can go unheard because they're such a tiny whisper and sometimes sheer silence.
And then there's the voices of the world: the voices of the world that can be so noisy and loud, almost like clashing symbols vying for our attention, pulling at us in all directions promising us happiness, assuring us that our passions will be entertained and fulfilled, convincing us that life is best lived through material things. And so these voices of the world confuse us. They lure us. And when the gentle voice of God says, "Come, follow me," we get distracted by what we're hearing around us, and our ears become more in tune with that. And God's voice becomes, at best, a murmur. A murmur that often goes unnoticed and unheeded.
Those worldly voices can frighten us. Those worldly voices can make us anxious. Those worldly voices are strong enough to bring the torrents of wind to shake us. And it's no wonder, in the distraction of it all, as we venture forth, we sink because we've listened to the wrong voice. And so the task of the believer, the task of the Christian, is to make friends with silence. To just turn off the distractions, to get rid of as much of the noise as possible, and to learn to listen to the simple, gentle voices that echo within our souls and hearts. To begin to understand and see that God's presence comes not in the dramatic and the spectacular but in the very ordinary things of life, if only we open our eyes and our hearts to see and to know and to understand and to receive.
The sacredness of silence is so powerful indeed when we make friends with it and learn to listen, and then learning to listen to that true and authentic voice of God when the torrents start rushing around us, when those noisy, distracting voices get the best of us, we can stand firm and not sink because we lack the proper faith.
Even those closest to Jesus needed to learn that lesson as well.
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.