July Journal, Seventh Sunday after Trinity

We are in the long, green, growing season of the Church Year, a season that is seasoned with Paul’s letters to the first Christian churches, and the miracles and teachings of Christ. We heard today in Paul’s Epistle that the wages of sin is death, that as servants of sin we were free from righteousness and without fruit; we were paid with death. But as servants of God, our fruit is holiness and everlasting life through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:19+). In the Gospel (Mark 8:1+) we hear of Christ’s miracle when he fed the four thousand, those traveling to hear him preach from the hillside, turning seven loaves and a few fishes into many, a witness to his divinity and a precursor to the institution of the Holy Eucharist on the night before he was crucified.

It is a time of learning and listening, this green season of Trinitytide.

And so I reflected on the last two weeks and the graced chance to attend daily noon Mass at St. Joseph’s during their seminary residential session. Each morning I decided whether I would go that day, for I have many home commitments that require my presence. But the Real Presence waited for me on the simple altar in our chapel, urging me with that still small voice, nudging me to be present at all ten of the weekday Eucharists.

The daily feeding enriched me beyond measure, in a way that I find miraculous and precious. Each day I asked, “What will you show me today?” “What part of my soul needs healing?” so that the effort seemed to work out – the scheduling, the lack of planning, the spontaneity. Ten great gifts for me at the altar. Ten meals for my soul. Ten fruits harvested. Ten seeds planted to flower with faithful watering.

A friend of mine, the vicar of our chapel, showed me a website a number of years ago. There were boys singing in a cathedral a lyrical song I wasn’t familiar with, since it wasn’t in our hymnal. They sang “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Their voices soared in the space, and they sang as though they too soared, flying into the domes and beyond into Heaven. I never forgot that, those voices and those words so plaintive and grateful, and I looked up the song later and learned it. It has become one of my favorites, and from time to time we sing it from printed sheets in our chapel.

For it is faithfulness that teaches us about righteousness and the Kingdom of Heaven. It is daily prayer, daily song, daily ritual morning and evening that brings us into God’s presence. Most of the time, the routine is just that, routine, but I have found that as I memorize the words they come from someplace deep inside my heart, and my conversation with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit becomes more real, feeding me, so that I am better able to recognize sin and to know righteousness. The daily conversation gives me the sight that is needed to see, the nutrients needed to flower.

Faithfulness can be boring, to be sure, and even with this slight annoyance we learn discipline and fortitude. A bit at a time, a still small voice at a time, so that compiled in years upon years (my threescore and fifteen as I write this) the whisper becomes a chorus of angels. Along the way are many dry times, and faithfulness bridges these deserts in the heart. Faithfulness says, go to Mass even if you don’t feel like it.

Faithfulness means getting off the couch and stepping out the door and traveling to Sunday Mass, often at a cost to our immediate comfort. Perhaps it is the cost, the discipline, that feeds more faithfulness, for in time it becomes easier and easier to keep the feast and observe the fast of comfort.

Faithfulness means recognizing and responding to the gifts others have given you – an invitation to teach Sunday School, a chance to sing in the choir, a sign-up for the local mission and its food drive or soup kitchen. We open our hearts and minds to these sudden moments, evaluating if they are sent by God to help s grow green and fruitful and righteous. An elderly friend of mine at the age of 82 faithfully tidies the pews, putting books back, each Sunday. She will be rewarded.

Faithfulness multiplies just as those loaves and fishes multiplied on the hillside. Christ as our creator is not challenged by creating more out of his own creation. And so he multiplies the loaves and the fishes. Just so, he multiplies the graces and blessings in our lives as we open our hearts to his will. Our faithful attendance, seemingly a little thing, begets others to be faithful as well, and then they beget others’, so that many sheep hear the Shepherd’s call, and many seeds are sown in the desert.

Today my heart is full because I took those little baby steps each day to go to the noon Mass. I shall remember these two weeks for a long time, and I shall magnify their presence in my soul with each Sunday eucharist, all the while looking forward to our Seminary Summer Session 2023.

For great is thy faithfulness, O God my father. Call me to be faithful too.