Our relationships with nature, with each other and with God

Homily for June 21, 2015 (12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Father’s Day [USA])
Job 38:1, 8-11; Psalm 107; 2 Corinthians 5:14-17; Mark 4:35-41

As most holidays go, Father’s Day is relatively new.  It wasn’t officially declared a national celebration until 1972—58 years after Mother’s Day.  According to historians, part of the reason is that for many people (especially shoppers) a lot of the sentimentality and gift-giving associated with moms didn’t seem to fit as well as with dads.  The first recorded celebration of fathers in our country, in fact, came in response to a tragedy:  in July 1908, a church in West Virginia offered a memorial service for 362 coal miners who were killed in a mine explosion.

Tragedy and crisis often trigger the need for us to remember—and to learn.  On Thursday, the Holy See released Pope Francis’ long-anticipated encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’. The title comes from the litany of praises that St. Francis of Assisi offered to God in the Canticle of the Creatures for the things of earth and heaven, life and death, as well as those who forgive.  In the same song, he called blessed those who endure in peace and do God’s will.

Like Pope Francis’ encyclical and St. Francis’ canticle, the biblical readings for our Mass today call us to reflect deeply about our relationships with nature, with each other and with God.  Several readings emphasize God’s power as Creator.  After patiently listening to Job and his companions argue about human suffering and divine justice, God finally speaks up “out of the storm” and over the next four chapters uses numerous examples of the mysteries and power of nature to challenge Job’s presumption and purported wisdom.  In the end, Job is left speechless before God. Psalm 107, using the example of God’s sovereignty over nature as experienced by a group of sailors, likewise calls forth a response of awe and gratitude:  “Give thanks to the Lord, his love is everlasting.”

In our gospel passage from Mark 4, Jesus continues to reveal himself as God’s Son, stopping a storm by rebuking the wind and telling the sea, “Be quiet!  Be still!” He also rebukes the disciples for their lack faith and for being overcome by fear.

Yet it’s easy to understand their fear, isn’t it?  Here they were, in the middle of sudden storm on the sea, with the wind buffeting them and their boat taking on water, and Jesus was…asleep!  Sometimes as we deal with seemingly overwhelming problems—a rapidly evolving economy that is making some very rich and leaving many more others struggling to stay afloat; terrible droughts in some places and destructive storms and floods in others; technological transformations that are simultaneously making our world smaller yet also making it more superficial and impersonal—we can easily become paralyzed with fear, immobilized by indifference, or frustrated by the inability of our leaders and institutions to deal with them.  We wonder, “Where is God in all of this? Does God even care?”

In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis reassures us:  God is with us, God loves us, and God cares deeply about the people and indeed the entire world God has created.  “The universe,” he writes, “did not emerge as the result of arbitrary omnip­otence, a show of force or a desire for self-asser­tion. Creation is of the order of love. God’s love is the fundamental moving force in all created things” (77).  That same love was embodied in Jesus, God's Son.  It is in that same Jesus that we, in St. Paul's words, have become new creations; and we are now called to respect, restore, and renew and the world that God has given us. +