For regular readers of Ashes From Burnt Roses, you
will remember my Black Labrador Retriever, Rosie.I have posted on her
through the years, especially on her birthdays.There are some great pictures and videos of
her through the years in those posts.It
tugs at my heartstrings to recall them.
Last week on the twelfth, Rosie turned twelve years
old.She is now our longest living
dog.For nostalgia's sake, here are the life
spans of our three dogs.
Birth
Death
Life
Span
Days
Sasha
Oct 5, 1991
July 18, 2003
11 Yrs, 9 Mths, 13 Days
4,305 Days
Brandi
Nov 4, 2003
Dec 1, 2013
10 Yrs, 27 days
3,681 Days
Rosie
Aug 12, 2014
Still Living!
12 Yrs, 7 days & Counting
4,390+ Days
We loved them all.
Rosie is still kicking!To my surprise.She had a bunch
of ailments as a young dog.She had Lyme
Disease.We were not as strict with her
on the heartworm pills, and after Covid we rarely took her to the veterinarian
unless it was an emergency.She was not
kept up on her shots, and frankly I wonder how good all those shots are.She had seizures last year but it’s been a
while since the last one.She had and
continues to have all sorts of benign growths, some very large.Right now she as a growth on the right side
of her chest about the size of three-inch-thick paperback, ten by six
inches.One large growth several years
ago was on her rear end, and it grew so big that it obstructed her anus.It had to be removed.The surgeon said it came out as one large ball
and it was all benign.We suspect that
large growth on her chest is benign also.
For the past year she has struggled with arthritis in her
hips.She hasn’t tried to run in over
six months.The video I posted on her
eleventh birthday may have been the last time she ran.It’s a struggle for her to go up and down the
stairs.Going up the stairs I have to
help her rear half by placing one arm under her belly and the other on her
backside pushing up and forward.Once I give
her a push she gets into a rhythm, pulling her back legs up the stairs as she
pulls herself with her front legs.We
took her to the vet in April and he did not recommend any medication.She also showed up with reduced kidney
function in her blood test.
At some point after her eleventh birthday, I started counting
down the months to her twelfth hoping she would get there.And she did!It sounds depressing but she remains a happy dog.
She, as all our pets, have been blessings to us.
We got her a floor mattress thinking she would prefer not to
climb onto the couch.In her doggy logic
she refuses to lay on the floor mattress.The best we could do was coax her to lay her head on it.
And guess who took over the mattress?Tiger!LOL.
She still gets on the couch, mostly by herself but sometimes
with a little help.
Being silly!
And with Rochelle.
In the snow in February.
Here at the Vet in April.
Here is her most recent picture on her birthday last week.
On the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time in
Year A, Jesus continues His Galilean ministry only for this passage He takes a
side trip north.Why does He go north?Well, it’s hardly ever mentioned when it
comes to the exegesis of this passage, but the clue is in the response to the
Canaanite woman.He tells her He came for
the lost sheep of Israel.Jesus is in
the area of the lost ten tribes of Israel who were conquered by the Assyrians
and then absorbed into their population.The lost sheep are gone and only God can reconstitute them.
Matthew chooses to call the woman a “Canaanite.”This was anachronistic for Matthew’s time.The people of the area had long ceased to be seen
as “Canaanites,” a term from First Temple times, some eight hundred years
prior.In the same corresponding passage
in Mark’s Gospel, Mark calls her the Philo-Phoenician woman, and that’s how
people in Jesus’ time would have called her.So Matthew is choosing a term that heightens the enemies of Israel,
which would further alienate the woman.
So grasp this.Jesus is coming to reconstitute the twelve
tribes, but ten of them are absorbed into a new, pagan culture.Within the “Canaanite” woman are both
cultures but, in a sense, alienated.Jesus
in response to her request tells her He has come for the lost Jews.She has identified Jesus as the Mesiah, “Son of
David,” and so she reveals her bi-furcated nature.Through her humility and faith, Jesus
transcends the structure of the priority that the children of Israel eat first
and the “dogs” eat scraps.The new pagan
culture, through faith, contains the Jewish past.
Thomas Aquinas in his Homily
#4 identifies five aspects of the woman’s response which should serve as a
model for us.
(1) Humility: “ Yet the dogs eat.” (2) Her patience, since she
patiently endured the seeming reproaches of Our Lord. (3) Her prayer, “ Have
mercy on me, O Lord.” (4) Her perseverance : she did not cease asking till she
obtained what she desired. (5) Her faith: “O woman, great is thy faith.”
Today’s Gospel:
At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,
"Have pity on me, Lord, Son of
David!
My daughter is tormented by a
demon."
But Jesus did not say a word in
answer to her.
Jesus' disciples came and asked him,
"Send her away, for she keeps
calling out after us."
He said in reply,
"I was sent only to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel."
But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, "Lord, help
me."
He said in reply,
"It is not right to take the
food of the children
and throw it to the dogs."
She said, "Please, Lord, for
even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their
masters."
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
"O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you
wish."
And the woman's daughter was healed
from that hour.
~Mt: 15:21-28
For the exegetical homily, I’m going to turn to Fr. Mike Schmidt who I
think zeros in on why this passage is so powerful.Let’s set aside the historical context and
let Fr. Mike focus on the spiritual.
Fr. Mike:
If you've ever been
in a situation where there's you know some kind of like medical emergency or
not even medical emergency but typically situation where the you've tried all of
your options like you've exhausted all of your options whether that be you know
a joint has failed and you're like man I'm in so much pain or maybe there's
like a cancer diagnosis and you went through all of the treatments sometimes
it's a mental health issue where you're like I I've seen a counselor I've tried
medication all these things where it seems like, okay, there's and there's and
there's no other option. There's no other you're desperate. You've ever been in
that situation where you're just so desperate, like you've tried everything and
nothing has helped, and you find yourself in the exact same place as you were
before, but you're not even in the exact same place as you were before. You're
in a worse place because before you tried all these other options, uh you had
hope.But after having tried everything
and nothing's worked, you realize, is there room for hope?And this is the place of desperation, right?
And this again, this is the place that a lot of us can find ourselves and
probably a lot of us will find, maybe all of us will find ourselves at some point
in our life where we have tried everything and nothing's helped. We've tried
everything and nothing has worked.
Now, I I've talked to
some people who will see that the intercessory petitionary prayer, they will
see that as kind of like a less than prayer where it's that that's for those
people who don't really trust God. And you know, a couple weeks ago again, I I
I mentioned this. I said that sometimes people ask me, "Hey, Father Mike,
what do you need prayers for?" And my answer is often times, I don't know.
I I just I know that God I know that God knows and I know that God is give me
going to give me the best.And so there
that's a certain level of trust, right? a certain level of trust where we
basically do say that we say, "God, I trust you that you're going to give
me what I need." Petitionary prayer, intercessory prayer, we know that
that's not for those who are less spiritually advanced for a couple reasons.
Number one is because Jesus did do petitionary prayer. Jesus did do
intercessory prayer and we are not more advanced than Jesus. That's the number
that's the first thing we have to understand. The second thing is this that
approaching God to again prayer is a petition where we are interceding on
behalf of ourselves or someone else.That
kind of prayer asking God for what we know or what we need or what we want.It's an exercise of what it is to be a son or
daughter of God. I mean just imagine if we if we didn't approach the Lord with
our with our needs or we didn't approach the Lord with our wants that could be
a sign that we're not willing to open our hearts to God and and tell him and
show him our hearts.
The third thing is
this. I think there's a certain kind of trust. Again, there is a real trust
that says, "God, you know best, so I won't even ask." Again, I think
that's not bad. That's a certain kind of trust. God, you know best, I won't
even ask. There's also a kind of trust that says, God, you know best. So, I
will ask for what I want. I will ask for what I need and then I will trust that
you will give me the best. And I think that's even a deeper trust. It's one
thing to just be like, hands off, God, you give me whatever you you need to
give me.There's a deeper kind of trust
that says, God, I'm going I know you're going to give me what's best. I'm also
going to reveal my heart to you. I'm going to ask you for something and then
I'm going to trust that you give me what is best because again that is a
profound act of trust because we know this. We know that God can have it. God
will answer. We know that God's answers are at least three things. He one of at
least three things. He could say yes. He could say no. He could say wait.We know that when we come before God like the
Canaanite woman in the gospel today and we're desperate and we say God this is
what I need. He can say yes. He can say no. And he can say wait. So here's the
question.When I ask when I'm desperate,
when I come before God and say God, this is what I need or this is what I want.
The question is this.Can God tell me
no? Can God tell me no?The further
question is, what do I do when God tells me no?I love this. What happened in the Gospels? Well, what someone might say
is that she persists. Maybe even they would say that she argues with Jesus
maybe.But the first thing that she does
is Jesus tells her no.And she stays.
This is this is this is so so important.Jesus gives his answer. Jesus tells her no.And she stays there. Question. Can God tell
me no and I won't go anywhere?Because
our temptation, my temptation, our our temptation is to be mercenaries, right?
To give our to give our hearts to the high to the highest bidder, to give our
faith, to give our trust, to give our allegiance to the highest bidder.
Trust is what is at the heart of the Canaanite woman’s appeal.
For the pastoral homily I’m going to turn to Cardinal Blase Cupich who
focuses on the differences of the in group and the out group.
Cardinal Cupich:
Established groups
can very easily fall into the temptation, the trap of defining who's in and who
is out, who belongs and who doesn't, a difference between us and them.We see that so often in society and it can
happen even in the life of the church. People who are veterans of the faith
begin to act as though they're quite settled with their own community where
they can be their own insular group, a self-referential community as Pope
Francis often spoke of, and even tie themselves to a political party as though
they are a political party at prayer.But
what we see in Isaiah the prophet and in Jesus words in the Gospel of Matthew
today is that that is a temptation we should put aside.And we see this in this story of this
Canaanite woman. She indeed is a foreigner, speaks a different language, is a
pagan.And yet she comes to Jesus with a
need.And at first, of course, the
disciples want to send her away. She's a bother to us. And Jesus even
recognizes the prejudice in their heart to the point where the cruelty of that
line.The dogs in fact should not be
given the master's food.He says that to
unveil and show the cruelty of categorizing people according to those who
belong and those who don't.But instead,
what comes to the surface is her need as a human being, as a mother for her
child, about her human dignity that cuts across all of those prejudices and
categorizations we make of people.
Three years ago when this passage came up in the lectionary, I
offered this interpretation as to why Jesus refers to her as a dog.I want to re-emphasize it because I think
Cardinal Cupich is alluding to similar.
Jesus and the
apostles have been walking in a foreign country and come across lots of
pagans.The apostles being sinners and
proud of their heritage mumbling to each other lots of what we would call
racist language as they talk about people they see.Jesus overhears them and picks up on this
language not to insult the woman but to bring down the pride of his Jewish
apostles.It is the apostles who are cut
to the heart.
Cardinal Cupich:
Sometime later, Jesus
would say to them, "If you have faith and do not doubt, if you say And
here is this woman who shows her human dignity as someone who can love, love
her daughter and she is asking Jesus to show that same love for her.It's so very important in our lives to make
sure we examine ourselves from time to time within the life of the church, but
also in society that we do not create these boundaries and these walls to the
point where we disregard the real human needs of others, the dignity of people,
feeling as though we can cast them aside like the disciples wanted to do
because they're going to make some demands on us or they're a bother to us.
Without being political, I see exactly what Cardinal
Cupich is alluding to, and I agree.
Sunday Meditation: "I
was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
How about this lovely hymn for today, “Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All/”
Today, Year A’s Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary
Time, we continue following Jesus and the apostles after the Feeding of the
Five Thousand.Jesus disperses the crowd
and sends the apostles off on their boat while he goes up the hillside to pray
alone.The boat encounters a storm, and Jesus
heads out to the apostles, walking on the water.You know the passage.Peter asks
if he could be allowed to walk on the water, and after Jesus acknowledges and
Peter does take a few steps, he loses faith and starts to sink.Jesus then saves him.
There are a couple of mysterious details in
this passage.Let me bring them out in
the form of questions and try to answer them, but rest assured I’m not all that
confident in my answers.
Why does Jesus send them off alone to the
boat while He goes away from them?
Prayer is certainly important to Jesus, but the fact He “made them get into
a boat” suggests He has orchestrated all the subsequent events.All details should be filtered with this
detail.
Why does He walk on water to go out to
them?Couldn’t He calm the sea and wait
for the boat to dock?
Jesus walking on water is a theophany, a manifestation of His
divinity.He intended to manifest to the
apostles.This appears to be the reason to
send them off while He stays back.
Why is the boat on the sea on the fourth
watch, which is supposed to be between 3 and 6 AM?That’s not a particularly safe time to be on
water in ancient times.
It’s obviously overcast and the surroundings would be totally
dark.A natural impulse would be to head
back to shore but Jesus wanted them out and so they were obedient.As Dr. Pitre will explain below, they were
fishermen, and so used to going on the sea at night.Perhaps the bad weather caught them by
surprise.
Why did Peter want to walk on the water?
It’s not exactly a natural inclination.He sees Jesus walking on water, did Peter want to emulate Him?Was he just looking for a thrill?Was he trying to show off?I guess we will never know.
Today’s Gospel:
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.
Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying,
“Truly, you are the Son of God.”
~Mt: 14:22-33
Our old friend, Dr. Brant Pitre, brings out the exegetical main points.
Dr. Pitre:
It's important to
recall the setting of this miracle. It
takes place after the famous feeding of the 5,000 in the Gospel of Matthew. So one of the reasons this is important to
highlight is because the same sequence occur in all the Gospels so for example
in Matthew and Mark and in John all of those Gospels—three of the four actually—three
of the four Gospels have accounts of the walking of Jesus on the water and in
all three that that account immediately follows the feeding of the 5,000, so
it's like a pair of miracles: Jesus feeds the 5,000 and then he walks on the
water, so it's in the wake of him having performing this amazing miracle
feeding 5,000 people from five loaves and two fish that Jesus then withdraws
and he goes up the mountain to pray right. So it gets late and then while he is up in the
mountain praying the disciples set off across the Sea of Galilee in the boat. Now a couple elements about the context: where
exactly does this take place on the Sea of Galilee? Well we don't the exact location but we do
know the Sea of Galilee to this day is not a very…small lake it's about seven
miles wide at its widest point and it was the kind of beating heart of Galilee,
and is the place of fishing and industry and disciples knew it well and when
they're in their boat [it] is important the first thing you notice is they're
not right next to shore; it says there are many furlongs distant from the land
now in John's account of this miracle he actually says they're about four miles
from the shore.
Also notice the time
it's the fourth watch of the night, so this is in the middle of the night
sometime between three o'clock and six o'clock in the morning now most of us
wouldn't get on a boat and be out in the middle of the night between 3 and 6
a.m. But for the Apostles they were
pretty used to this because as fishermen it was actually customary to fish at
night we'll see that in a gospel John that they spend all night fishing and
they don't catch anything so they are traveling in the middle of the night and something
they're pretty used to. What they're not
used to however is being on the water in the middle of the night in the middle
of the lake and seeing a man coming to them walking on the waves of the sea,
and that's what Jesus does here in this account, he comes to them walking on
the sea. Now when they experience this
their first reaction is fear right and they assume that he's a ghost pretty
interesting a point there because it shows us that apparently at least some of
the disciples believed in ghosts.
Jesus says something
very interesting, he says take heart don't be afraid. I'll pause there for a second; this is a clue
to us that we should characterize this account Jesus walking on the water as a
theophany. A theophany as I've mentioned
in other videos is an appearance of God. It's where God reveals his power and his glory
and its presence to his people on earth, and one of the things you'll see over
and over again in accounts of theophanies in the Bible is that people are
always afraid, like when they see God they're afraid, and God's response to their
fear is often to quell it. Right to say
be calm don't be afraid and then to speak to them to give them some message, so
in this case Jesus says take heart have no fear and then he says it is I. Now the Greek, the literal Greek behind that
expression which most Bibles render—“it is I”—is “egō eimi,” which
literally in Greek means take heart, “I am so,” that's quite the same thing as
it is me.[It] literally just says take
heart I now.On the one hand the expression I am, egō eimi,
can be used to identify someone right so if I ask you a question is that you
and you say I am it could respond by saying yes it's me. Right so that can be the sense or the meaning
of it, but the literal meaning of the word in context is more than that Jesus
isn't just identifying himself; he's also taking the divine name of God.
From the Old
Testament and using it as his own, so in other words he's alluding to the most
famous theophany in the Bible, the theophany of the appearance of God to Moses
on Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus chapter 3. So in that theophany God comes to Moses and he
calls Moses to go to the people of Israel who were slaves in Egypt and to set
them free and to bring a message of deliverance, and Moses says well if I go to
them whose name shall I give them, what name will I tell them is the name of
the God who sent me? And the Lord says
to Moses, “I am Who I am, tell them I am has sent you to them.” Right this is
my name for all generations God goes on to say, so the name that the expression,
“I am,” is more than just an identification; it's the divine name, so when you
take Jesus's use of the term, “I am,” you couple it with the fact that he is
walking on water and that he's saying don't be afraid which is standard
theophany language from the Old Testament, [all] three things together show to
us that Jesus is revealing his divinity.
That’s a pretty clear exegesis.For the pastoral homily, I’m going to knock you out of your socks with
this from Pope Leo XIV.
Pope Leo XIV:
Dear brothers and
sisters, happy Sunday. Today's gospel speaks of Jesus approaching his disciples
by walking on the waters of the Sea of Galilee in the midst of a storm.
Following the miracle of the loaves and fish, the master urges his disciples to
get into the boat and set out while he withdraws to the mountain to pray by
himself. Once away from the shore, the disciples find themselves at the mercy
of the wind and struggle to make headway. After a successful experience in
which they had been the protagonists of a miraculous sign, they now find
themselves helpless and frightened in the face of the threat of the waves and
the headwind. As the night was drawing to a close, Jesus came towards them
across the choppy waters, and terrified, they mistook him for a ghost. But he
said to them, "Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.” The Lord's presence
changes everything. Peter even manages to take a few steps across the waves
towards him. But then losing his nerve, he begins to sink and Jesus saves him.
When the master then steps into the boat, the storm subsides and a profession
of faith spontaneously springs out of the disciples hearts.Truly, you are the son of God. To realize
this point, it was not enough for them simply to have witnessed a miracle nor
to have succeeded in the eyes of the people. Instead, they had to experience
their own weakness and within it recognize God's presence. Only this experience
could open their eyes and hearts to his closeness, finding peace even in the
midst of the storm.
Notice the point.It’s not just witnessing
the miracle that changes the apostle’s hearts.It’s the fear and anxiety they experience that changes them.They had to experience the terror for their
souls to find peace.
Pope Leo XIV:
Sometime later, Jesus
would say to them, "If you have faith and do not doubt, if you say to this
mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, it will be done." This is
similar to what they experienced on the lake. The peace of Christ who had been
on the mountain praying reached them in the midst of the raging waters. This
miracle then teaches us something important. First, not to get carried away by
success and never to be presumptuous. At the same time, not to despair even in
moments of darkness when we feel powerless in the face of problems. And despite
our efforts, it seems as though we are going backwards rather than forwards.
Whatever the circumstances, Jesus does not abandon us. And if we humbly welcome
him into the boat of our lives through prayer, the sacraments, and listening to
his word, in him we will find peace, light, and strength for our journey. May
who is proclaimed blessed for her faith, help us to live in a trusting
surrender to God.
Ultimately what I think Pope Leo is getting at is that there
is a relationship between faith and hope.The apostles had a momentary shaking of faith; Peter walking on the
water loses faith and begins to drown.What
does he do?He calls out to Jesus.The calling is an act of hope.The apostles did not despair.One may have a shaking of one’s faith from
the tumultuous events in our lives—and that is natural—but keeping hope in
Jesus is the key to salvation.
Sunday Meditation: But
when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to
sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”
What hymn could be better for this reading than “Take My Hand, Precious
Lord,”Words: Thomas A. Dorsey, 1932. I played this three years ago for this reading, and I will never miss an opportunity to play my most beloved hymn. And I absolutely love this version by a not
so well known jazz singer named Jimmy Scott.
Precious Lord, take
my hand,
Lead me on, let me
stand,
I am tired, I am
weak, I am worn;
Through the storm,
through the night,
Lead me on to the
light:
Refrain
Take my hand,
precious Lord,
Lead me home.
When my way grows
drear,
Precious Lord, linger
near,
When my life is
almost gone,
Hear my cry, hear my
call,
Hold my hand lest I
fall:
Refrain
When the darkness
appears
And the night draws
near,
And the day is past
and gone,
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet, hold
my hand:
Refrain
I want this song and
this version played at my funeral. I
said this on YouTube comments for this song: “I think Jimmy Scott's rendition
of this beautiful hymn is my all time favorite.There is such suffering in his voice.It feels so honest.”
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