After the Storm
Well, it's been an interesting couple of weeks, hasn't it? The great storm of 2006. Fortunately, while there was a lot of property damage, there were only a few lives lost, which is something we can be thankful for.
One of the effects of the storm is that it's created a new kind of one-upsmanship. However much you suffered from the storm, the other guy can always top your story. If your power was out for two days, his power was out for three. If you had to throw away $100 worth of food, he had to throw away $200 worth. It's just human nature.
Of course, we also have to allow for rounding. You know how that works. Our power was out for about 36 hours, so I round it up to two days. And, as time passes, the numbers have a tendency to grow a little. If I'm still alive in 20 years, I can see myself telling my grandkids, “Yeah, back in '06 we had this monster storm. Winds were at least 100 MPH. Our power was out for a week and we had to throw away $1,000 worth of food. All we had to eat was stale bread and hot water. The temperature was at least 110 degrees and we had to sleep on the basement floor with no pillows.” And someone else will jump in and say, “That's nothing. Our power was out for a month. You were lucky you had a basement floor to sleep on.......”
When the storm hit on Wednesday night, I was riding my bicycle over on Grant's Trail. When I realized there might be a problem, I was at the far end, about 5 miles from my car. There really isn't much shelter along the trail, so I decided the best thing for me to do was to get back to the car. Since I was basically headed east, which was the direction the storm was coming from, there was some serious head wind. Since I'm not particularly aerodynamically designed, I wasn't exactly flying along. It was getting darker and windier and I kept thinking about last Sunday's responsorial Psalm, number 23. “Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” That five mile ride seemed a lot like the valley of the shadow of death.
Of course, I made it in one piece. Which brings me to today's readings. I know you were hoping I'd get there sooner or later. Both the Old Testament reading and the Gospel talk about food. In the reading from 2nd Kings, Elisha fed the people with twenty barley loaves and fresh grain. When his servant objected that he couldn't possibly feed 100 people with such a small amount, Elisha answered, “For thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and there shall be some left over.'” Of course, when the hundred people had eaten, there was some left over.
The Gospel story is John's version of the famous story of the loaves and the fishes. This time Jesus feeds five thousand with five barley loaves and two fish. And again, there is some left over. Jesus fed 50 TIMES as many people with ¼ the amount of food. When He was done, there were twelve baskets of food left over, more than they had started with.
We've heard many times that these stories represent the Eucharist, which Jesus would institute at the Last Supper. The twelve baskets that were left over, one for each of the twelve Apostles represent the fact that each of them would feed the people with Christ's Body and Blood after His death and resurrection.
But, I'd like for you to think for a minute about the Responsorial Psalm. I think it points us in another direction. David writes, “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”
He feeds us and answers ALL our needs.
“You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
“The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.”
God knows what we needs and He makes sure we get it. Notice that it's our NEEDS that he answers, not our wants. That's where we get confused sometimes. You may be thinking, “C'mon deacon, if he answers all my needs, why was my power out for four days?”
That's simple. Face it, most of us don't NEED electricity. Jesus didn't have electricity. Do you think He thinks we need it? Men lived for thousands of years without it. One of the big attractions at the 1904 World's Fair right here in St. Louis was electric light, just a little over 100 years ago. Many places in the world still don't have electricity. The city of Baghdad only has power for eight hours a day.
What God does give us is the ability to survive in tough situations. We're all here. Most of us seem to have survived the crisis with little or no damage. In fact, we're probably a little stronger, a little smarter, than we were before the storm. Three of my four kids happened to be home last week. On Thursday night we cooked and ate outside then we sat in the candle light and actually TALKED to one another, something that doesn't happen very often when the lights, and the television, and the computer are working. It was really kind of an adventure.
Some of us lost trees to the storm. We lost two big ones right here at St. Bernadette. But, you know what? Before this building was built, this was a forest. There were hundreds of trees. And occasionally, a storm would come by and knock down a few of them. That's how nature works. If a tree's not strong enough, a storm comes along and blows it over. Then it's replaced by a new tree.
But, we come along and cut down trees to make buildings. We leave a few of them around, or plant new ones, for decoration and shade. That same storm comes along and blows down a couple of trees and it's a big loss because they're all the trees that we have. Fortunately the falling trees did no other damage. We can be especially thankful that they didn't fall on anyone and kill them. We can't go against natural law and God doesn't either. But, He's near to all who call upon Him.
Lightning stuck a tree in my neighbor's yard, about 50 feet from my house. A big chunk of it ended up in my yard. We cut the piece up and the trash men hauled it away. No big deal. But, just a few weeks ago, we had a bigger tree in our yard cut down because it had died. Our tree was taller than the neighbor's tree and a lot closer to our house. Lightning normally strikes the tallest object, so there's a good chance that if our dead tree had still been standing, it would probably been the one that got hit and it most likely would have fallen right on our house. God works in mysterious ways, but He answers all our needs.
Over the years we seem to have lost the distinction between what we want and what we need. I need air to breathe and food and water to eat and drink. I don't need air conditioning or cable TV. Most of us here today can remember life BAC, before air conditioning. Here's an interesting bit of trivia. This was one of the first churches in the Archdiocese to have air conditioning. They didn't air condition churches back in the 40's and 50's. Even when it became available, it was a big expense for a building that was only used a few times per week.
But since this was originally a movie theater, the AC was already here. So, St. Bernadette opened for business air conditioned for your worshipping comfort.
God has been very good to all of us. He never fails to give us what we need. He answers our prayers, even though the answer isn't always one we prefer.
I didn't get hit on the head by a falling tree on the Grant Trail. My sons, who were at the Cardinal game that night didn't get trampled by the crowd. My wife and daughter, who like to stand by the window and watch the storm didn't get struck by lightning or hit by a falling tree. The tree in front of church didn't come crashing through the roof at a time when the place was full of people. If it weren't summer, our choir would have been practicing right below where the tree fell.
Now that the storm has passed, as storms always do, we can be thankful for what DIDN'T happen. We can clean up our yards, and restock our refrigerators, and put the flashlights away so the batteries will be dead the next time we need them. We can thank God for our blessings and thank all those who worked so hard to get things back to normal. We can take pride in the fact that our neighbors didn't go crazy and loot the 7-11 or hijack the ice truck, as they sometimes do in other cities.
We can also take a look around and see who wasn't as fortunate as we were. Food pantries need to be restocked. Some of our neighbors suffered financial losses that they aren't prepared to handle.
God had Elisha distribute the food to his people. Jesus had the Apostles distribute the food to the crowd. God works through human beings. The Psalm says “The hand of God feeds us, he answers all our needs.” You and I are God's hands. We can help him answer others needs, just as he answered ours.
One of the effects of the storm is that it's created a new kind of one-upsmanship. However much you suffered from the storm, the other guy can always top your story. If your power was out for two days, his power was out for three. If you had to throw away $100 worth of food, he had to throw away $200 worth. It's just human nature.
Of course, we also have to allow for rounding. You know how that works. Our power was out for about 36 hours, so I round it up to two days. And, as time passes, the numbers have a tendency to grow a little. If I'm still alive in 20 years, I can see myself telling my grandkids, “Yeah, back in '06 we had this monster storm. Winds were at least 100 MPH. Our power was out for a week and we had to throw away $1,000 worth of food. All we had to eat was stale bread and hot water. The temperature was at least 110 degrees and we had to sleep on the basement floor with no pillows.” And someone else will jump in and say, “That's nothing. Our power was out for a month. You were lucky you had a basement floor to sleep on.......”
When the storm hit on Wednesday night, I was riding my bicycle over on Grant's Trail. When I realized there might be a problem, I was at the far end, about 5 miles from my car. There really isn't much shelter along the trail, so I decided the best thing for me to do was to get back to the car. Since I was basically headed east, which was the direction the storm was coming from, there was some serious head wind. Since I'm not particularly aerodynamically designed, I wasn't exactly flying along. It was getting darker and windier and I kept thinking about last Sunday's responsorial Psalm, number 23. “Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” That five mile ride seemed a lot like the valley of the shadow of death.
Of course, I made it in one piece. Which brings me to today's readings. I know you were hoping I'd get there sooner or later. Both the Old Testament reading and the Gospel talk about food. In the reading from 2nd Kings, Elisha fed the people with twenty barley loaves and fresh grain. When his servant objected that he couldn't possibly feed 100 people with such a small amount, Elisha answered, “For thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and there shall be some left over.'” Of course, when the hundred people had eaten, there was some left over.
The Gospel story is John's version of the famous story of the loaves and the fishes. This time Jesus feeds five thousand with five barley loaves and two fish. And again, there is some left over. Jesus fed 50 TIMES as many people with ¼ the amount of food. When He was done, there were twelve baskets of food left over, more than they had started with.
We've heard many times that these stories represent the Eucharist, which Jesus would institute at the Last Supper. The twelve baskets that were left over, one for each of the twelve Apostles represent the fact that each of them would feed the people with Christ's Body and Blood after His death and resurrection.
But, I'd like for you to think for a minute about the Responsorial Psalm. I think it points us in another direction. David writes, “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”
He feeds us and answers ALL our needs.
“You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
“The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.”
God knows what we needs and He makes sure we get it. Notice that it's our NEEDS that he answers, not our wants. That's where we get confused sometimes. You may be thinking, “C'mon deacon, if he answers all my needs, why was my power out for four days?”
That's simple. Face it, most of us don't NEED electricity. Jesus didn't have electricity. Do you think He thinks we need it? Men lived for thousands of years without it. One of the big attractions at the 1904 World's Fair right here in St. Louis was electric light, just a little over 100 years ago. Many places in the world still don't have electricity. The city of Baghdad only has power for eight hours a day.
What God does give us is the ability to survive in tough situations. We're all here. Most of us seem to have survived the crisis with little or no damage. In fact, we're probably a little stronger, a little smarter, than we were before the storm. Three of my four kids happened to be home last week. On Thursday night we cooked and ate outside then we sat in the candle light and actually TALKED to one another, something that doesn't happen very often when the lights, and the television, and the computer are working. It was really kind of an adventure.
Some of us lost trees to the storm. We lost two big ones right here at St. Bernadette. But, you know what? Before this building was built, this was a forest. There were hundreds of trees. And occasionally, a storm would come by and knock down a few of them. That's how nature works. If a tree's not strong enough, a storm comes along and blows it over. Then it's replaced by a new tree.
But, we come along and cut down trees to make buildings. We leave a few of them around, or plant new ones, for decoration and shade. That same storm comes along and blows down a couple of trees and it's a big loss because they're all the trees that we have. Fortunately the falling trees did no other damage. We can be especially thankful that they didn't fall on anyone and kill them. We can't go against natural law and God doesn't either. But, He's near to all who call upon Him.
Lightning stuck a tree in my neighbor's yard, about 50 feet from my house. A big chunk of it ended up in my yard. We cut the piece up and the trash men hauled it away. No big deal. But, just a few weeks ago, we had a bigger tree in our yard cut down because it had died. Our tree was taller than the neighbor's tree and a lot closer to our house. Lightning normally strikes the tallest object, so there's a good chance that if our dead tree had still been standing, it would probably been the one that got hit and it most likely would have fallen right on our house. God works in mysterious ways, but He answers all our needs.
Over the years we seem to have lost the distinction between what we want and what we need. I need air to breathe and food and water to eat and drink. I don't need air conditioning or cable TV. Most of us here today can remember life BAC, before air conditioning. Here's an interesting bit of trivia. This was one of the first churches in the Archdiocese to have air conditioning. They didn't air condition churches back in the 40's and 50's. Even when it became available, it was a big expense for a building that was only used a few times per week.
But since this was originally a movie theater, the AC was already here. So, St. Bernadette opened for business air conditioned for your worshipping comfort.
God has been very good to all of us. He never fails to give us what we need. He answers our prayers, even though the answer isn't always one we prefer.
I didn't get hit on the head by a falling tree on the Grant Trail. My sons, who were at the Cardinal game that night didn't get trampled by the crowd. My wife and daughter, who like to stand by the window and watch the storm didn't get struck by lightning or hit by a falling tree. The tree in front of church didn't come crashing through the roof at a time when the place was full of people. If it weren't summer, our choir would have been practicing right below where the tree fell.
Now that the storm has passed, as storms always do, we can be thankful for what DIDN'T happen. We can clean up our yards, and restock our refrigerators, and put the flashlights away so the batteries will be dead the next time we need them. We can thank God for our blessings and thank all those who worked so hard to get things back to normal. We can take pride in the fact that our neighbors didn't go crazy and loot the 7-11 or hijack the ice truck, as they sometimes do in other cities.
We can also take a look around and see who wasn't as fortunate as we were. Food pantries need to be restocked. Some of our neighbors suffered financial losses that they aren't prepared to handle.
God had Elisha distribute the food to his people. Jesus had the Apostles distribute the food to the crowd. God works through human beings. The Psalm says “The hand of God feeds us, he answers all our needs.” You and I are God's hands. We can help him answer others needs, just as he answered ours.
posted by Mike at 11:05 AM
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