4th Sunday after Pentecost 16.6.13 Beyond the limits
The miraculous catch of fish, and other miracles worked by Our Lord, take us to a higher level than just our own immediate concerns. We worry about the immediate future, like what is for lunch, but He will take us much further than that.
The food that He offers us is not just to take away hunger but to fulfil every desire, for eternity. When He heals one person it is a symbol of the complete healing He offers every person - when every part of our being will be made whole.
We tend to adopt a pessimistic tone to our lives. If someone asks us how we are we might reply with standard phrases: No use complaining; As well as can be expected; Just getting by... There are many such phrases. They indicate that we are not expecting much in the way of happiness. We don't dare to hope for more than a reasonable amount of happiness, as we strive just to make ends meet, to stay out of trouble.
Yet the promises of the faith are so rich and vast. We are promised happiness way beyond what we would ask for, or even be able to imagine.
We would settle for a heaven that was just a bit better than this earthly life. Yet we are asked to believe in a much better heaven than that - so good that there are not words to describe it (cf St Paul in 2 Cor 11, unable to describe his heavenly vision).
How to have the vision and how to keep it? Prayer, especially the Mass, will raise us to higher things.
When we pray we are coming into contact with the extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ, who could inspire such confidence in the apostles that they left all to follow Him, not knowing anything of the future, but feeling they could trust Him.
And so are we led to that same trust. We want to follow this Man even if we do not see how He can do what He promises. The visionary in us is awakened. And we are converted or re-enthused.
We know enthusiasm can wear off with time. In fact, though, the promises are just as real and just as grand as they ever were. We cannot let our tiredness diminish the hope. Eternity does not get any shorter just because I am downhearted!
In eternity there will be no suffering, not so much as a mosquito bite; not a single tear will be shed.
The epistles reminds us that the sufferings we go through are as nothing compared with the joys we await. We would say it the other way round: that eternity cannot be compared with the sufferings because the sufferings are NOW, while the promises seem very remote by comparison.
But a bit of arithmetic will tell us that eternity is much longer than 80-100 years. This may not put money in our bank accounts, or take away pains in the body, but it does help to know there is a larger picture.
So also with earthly joys - they too are as nothing compared with heavenly joys. Earthly happiness is so fickle and fragile. But in eternity there is no disappointment. So much for ‘just getting by’.
We do have to attend to the little things, the daily concerns, the mundane, the humdrum etc. But we see those things as pointers to a much larger reality. The little things do not imprison us; they release us!
St Therese tells us that we could save a soul by doing a little thing with full love of God, eg picking up a pin.
If we are faithful in the little things we will be entrusted with greater.
Leaving all else and following Him we will discover all that is promised to us.
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