Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Today we celebrate the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Opening Prayer Grant, oh Lord, that we may always revere and love your holy name for you, never deprive of your guidance those you set firm on the foundation of your love.
You are Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament from the book of Job, 38th chapter, 1st verse and the 8th through the 11th verse. The Lord addressed Job out of the storms and said, who shuts within the doors the sea, when it bursts forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling bands, when I set limits for it, and fastened the bar of its door, and said, thus far shall you come, but no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stilled. The Word of the Lord Give thanks to the Lord, for his love is everlasting. A Reading from the New Testament from St.
Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians 5:14, 17 Brothers and sisters, the love of Christ impels us once we have come to the conviction that one died for all, therefore all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer. So whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old things have passed away.
Behold, new things have come. The Word of the Lord. Alleluia Verse A great prophet has risen in our midst. God has visited his people. The Gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. Mark, 4th chapter 35th to the 41st verse.
On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples, let us cross to the other side. Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was, and other boats were with him. A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, be quiet, be still.
The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he said to them, why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith? They were filled with great awe and said to one another, who then is this whom even wind and sea obey? The gospel of the Lord, God the Father, Jesus his Son. The two are often confused, or at least the two cause confusion in people as to who is God or what is God.
I mean, is God a man? Is God a God? And it’s really interesting how the two often, the way most people settled it in their minds and imagination, say, well, God’s the Father and Jesus is the Son. God’s the angry one and the vengeful one, and Jesus the nice one, who protects us from the vengeance of the Father. No, God the Father exists. He created everything.
He created it with the most loving disposition. Listen to that first reading. How beautiful it is that he created this world as if it’s a living being. When he talks about he created the sea, it was like he gave birth out of a womb to the sea was born. And then he gives it a place, and he makes a cloud so that it has a blanket, and then the darkness so that it can rest. And then he sets limits for it.
You know, what a beautiful way of imagining the earth as a living being. And with this image, what we find is that God created everything out of love. And he gave limits to everything in nature. Trees can only do so much. Water can only do so much. And then he took this chance and created human beings.
And human beings, in a sense, are not limited like nature is. They have this one element that is not in any other part of anything. That Jesus, that God created, has free will. He gave boundaries to the sea and he gives, in a sense, he calls us to live within a certain limitation of who we are and what we can do. But if we think we can go beyond that, there we go. You know, we, we.
We are a little unruly compared to the rest of creation. And so what’s he do with that? Well, he works with it in the most loving and patient and kind way. And I’d like you to look at the. The gospel now and see that God, who has power over nature, controls it. We see that same power that’s God the Father, now in God the Son.
Because Jesus. The best way to understand Jesus is he is a manifestation of God the Father in a human being. The same God that created the sea is the same God that’s in Jesus calming the sea. His humanity is with that. And the reason God chose to become also human was so that he could explain to us in a clear way that that’s his plan. He always created us, longing to have a relationship with us where we work together.
So Jesus is the manifestation of the fullness of who God is. He’s not just the God out there in heaven that creates everything, that the Master over everything. No, he’s also the partner that enters into our life like he did in Jesus life. But the thing about the humanity of Jesus, that’s different than our humanity, it’s completely sinless. It didn’t come from another human being. God created.
Created a man, Jesus himself. So he’s human, but not as human as we are. He doesn’t have our weaknesses, but he has free will, which is really interesting. So here is this beautiful manifestation of God in a human being, Jesus. And so we see something that goes on in the relationship that we have with God always comes up somewhere along the line. We’re doing what he calls us to do.
We’re living as we’re supposed to be living. And all of a sudden, instead, and everything being the way we expect it to be, there’s a squall. We all know what the squall feels like. What the heck is going on? Why isn’t this working? Why do I have this problem?
Why is the person I love dying? Why is the world so filled with tension? I mean, all those things, we get scared. And so what I love about the image of God in a human being creating calm in the midst of a storm. We have the man Jesus on a pillow in a squall in an open boat, which is kind of humorous to me. I mean, how talk about being relaxed.
But his disciples are terrified. They realize they’re going to die, and so they scream out, help us. Help us. Help us. And he’s sort of half awake, and he gets like, what? What are you worried about?
And it’s obviously the storm. So he just stops the storm because he. He’s God. And, you know, they’re just amazed. What? Who is this guy?
Who is he? Does that mean that God is saying to the disciples that eventually, if you let my father live in you as he lives in me, that you can do anything you want and you can calm storms and Things like that. No, that’s not the point. What he’s saying is if you have God living in you and you believe in him, he will never let anything destroy you. That’s the key. Nothing will destroy you.
Does that mean that nothing will ever frighten you or nothing will ever go wrong? No, no. It just means that no matter where and what you’re dealing with, it will never destroy you. Can you believe that? Well, the reason that’s so important to believe is because the power to do that is not in a human being. If you really think something is going to destroy you, you are terrified and you’ll resist whatever is going on because it can, in your mind, destroy you.
So hold that thought. There is something out there that can be so terrifying that you will resist it. And let’s look at the Paul’s insight, because it’s the most important thing I think I’ve ever really been focused on, because what we’re hearing in Paul is a mystery and it goes like this. Fundamentally, Jesus, the model of who we are, a human filled with divinity, was asked by God at one point in his life to do something that felt like he couldn’t do it because he, the God man, basically wanted more than anything else to save the world. He wanted to do his calling. He wanted to fulfill it.
He wanted to bring people into a deeper relationship with his Father through what he could show them. And he knew their frailties, he knew their weaknesses. And now God finally reveals to the man Jesus that his calling is going engage him in looking in the eyes of his disciples as a complete failure and allowing evil, which he always tells people he’s going to destroy, allow evil to destroy Jesus. And so he couldn’t, didn’t want to do it because he was afraid it would be the one thing that would keep him from achieving the goal that he really wanted to do. Now. This is his humanity now.
And so he says, please, Father, I don’t want to do this. Meaning I don’t want my disciples to be tested this strongly because I don’t know, it just. It’s too much. If I can’t do what I’m called to do, I won’t exist is what he’s kind of saying. And I want you to hear that again. If I’m not able to do what I think I’m supposed to do, that’s my essence, then I will die.
And that’s exactly what Jesus went through in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is like a death. And can I let go of the Very thing that is my core, my essence. Can I let go of that for some promise from God that it’ll be all right? He did it. He did it.
But here’s what Paul says. Because Jesus did that, because he did die for others, and he no longer was living just for himself, but for others. He wasn’t living out of the model he had for who he was and how he had to function. He gave that up trusting his father. And when he did that and he died, everybody died. What?
Meaning he did something in reality, in the human race. Being a member of the human race, Jesus was that his surrender to that moment made something shift. It reminds us of a mystery that whenever we go through anything, we don’t do it just ourselves, but we are engaged in something much bigger than ourselves. And whatever we do impacts everybody else. But his act of self, love, lessness and courage in that moment changed our capacity, and now we can do it ourselves. That’s amazing.
Since he died for all and no longer for himself, all of us are empowered to die and not focus solely on ourselves. So that’s grace. That’s what it means to be saved. So let’s go back to how that works in your life and in mind. So let’s say if you know a lot about personalities, you know that people have a certain focus of their life for where they find value. Some people are.
People are teachers and they have to always explain things to people. Other people are caregivers and they’re always caring for people. Some people like me are performers and they have to perform for everybody. Some people are people who have to control everything. And when. I mean, they have to, it means that when they are doing that, they feel most alive.
And if they can’t do that, they don’t think they exist. Their identity is so tied up in one of their roles. Just like, you might say the man Jesus was tied up in his role to be absolutely the catalyst in his own mind that he felt the disciples had to experience someone conquering evil. And God said, no, I’m going to show them that you conquered evil, but not by avoiding it, but by giving into it and surviving and then becoming even more than you ever were before. So follow that sequence, because what happens when you and I are facing something like the Garden of Gethsemane and we don’t want to give into it. The reason we don’t want to get into it is not that we don’t want to, but.
But we can’t. And why can’t we? Because our identity is too Tied into something that gives us value. If we’re not caring for somebody, I have no value. I don’t exist. If I’m not up there in front of a crowd performing for people, then I don’t exist.
I’ve heard many people say that are entertainers. The only time I really feel alive is when I’m on stage. The only feel I really alive is when I’m caring for somebody. The only time I feel alive is when I’m in charge. But that’s not who we are. And so what Jesus set up in motion is the reality that we as human beings do have the ability to say to that part of us that say, I will not exist if I don’t perform in a way that I’ve been trained to perform in order to have a sense of my value.
The life of Jesus saying to us, and the grace is there to say, no, you do exist, even though you don’t do that. So funny. I think all the time I don’t want to do something. I don’t want to call that person. I don’t want to go there. Why?
Well, what I find, the reason I don’t want to go there is because when I’m going to go there, I’m not going to do something they want me to do. I’m going to do something they don’t. I’m going to tell them something that they don’t want to hear. I’m going to tell them I can’t do that or I can’t help them or, you know, when I say I don’t want to, what I should really be saying is there’s something in me that can’t. It’s not that I want to. I can’t do it.
Why not? Well, because when I’m telling somebody something I don’t want to know, or if I tell them I can’t help them in the way they want. And I have grown up in an environment where my own value has always been on performing for somebody, pleasing them. And then I feel alive and then I exist. When that’s taken away from me unconsciously, I feel like I just don’t want to do it. But if I’m really honest, I’m saying I’m scared.
I’m scared if I don’t do it, I won’t exist. Here’s the thing about evil that I think is so fascinating. It always hides the core of what’s wrong in us, the evil we’re hanging onto, which is always an illusion. Remember, evil feeds on lies. So if you have a lie inside of you, that you’ve been trained, and we all have it on some level that my value is found in this, and that needs to be chipped away. God needs to say, your value is fundamentally in your essence that I created for you.
You’re not valuable because you are, in the eyes of someone else, approved. And so how you free yourself from that is to go with the experience that feels like if I do this, if I can’t perform like I want, I will die. And then you have to go through the experience of not being able to do it. Not only do you not die, but like Jesus, you rise. And when Jesus did what he did, surrendered to that which he feared the most, he was empowered to come back and do more than he ever did before. Now, that cannot be just a minor way of the whole story ending.
No. That’s the essence of what we’re being taught. If you’re willing to die to that thing that you think you really are, you will become so much more of who you really are. And if you can believe that, you won’t say to yourself, I don’t want to, because I basically can’t. You’ll say, I will. And the way that’s said in Jesus is not my will, but your will be done, not me.
Hanging on to an illusion of what it means to be a messiah, but allowing your will, how it’s written, what reality really is like, I want to enter into that. That’s what I will. The truth. And the thing about the truth always is it sets you free. Sam. Sa.
Sam. Father, through your son, you have made all things new. You have given to human nature a power we never had before. A power to trust in you more than we trust in our own illusions, our own fears. Bless us with the courage that it takes to live the life you’ve called us, to live, without the fear and the shame that so often comes from the patterns that we were taught. Your gift is life.
Let us engage in it as fully as we can. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. Every year, I take a group of people to Tuscany and to visit some very, very sacred, beautiful places. They’re in Orvieto, in Assisi, a beautiful monastery in La Verna. It’s in November, from the 2nd to the 9th this year. And if you’re interested, please go to my website and hit the Events tab and then you’ll have a full description of what we do.
It never ceases to amaze me how much it changes people’s perspective and opens up a newer world that they haven’t seen before. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program, is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support.
Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Page Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2024.