HOMLY WEEK 07 02 – Year I
Childlike Trust in God:
Optional Memorial of St. Peter Damian
(Sir 2:1-11; Ps 37; Mk 9:30-37)
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A young man asked his friends if they believed he could push a wheelbarrow on a high wire over Niagara Falls. They of course said no so he did it. Then he asked his friends if they believed he could push a wheelbarrow on a high wire over Niagara Falls. They replied yes, they now believed. Did they really believe, he asked again? Again, they said they did. Then he told them, okay, who will be the first? Get in and he would give them a ride.
“Commit your life to the Lord and the Lord will help you.” This psalm response, and the readings today invite us to have a child-like trust in God.
There is a pattern in our lives. Belief leads to faith in a person that is more personal. That faith needs to grow deeper and become trust in that person. That in turn, when it comes to God, leads us to surrender.
Step 3 of A.A. fits in here beautifully: “Made a decision to surrender our lives and our will over to the care of God as we understood God.” What a powerful and demanding step.
Jesus of course is our prime model. His faith and trust in the Father’s love for him gave him the strength to freely go to the Cross and give up his life for us, as he predicts to his disciples in today’s gospel.
Babies and children, whom Jesus mentions, are another example for us. The trust of a baby who fearlessly delights to be thrown up into the air and caught on the way down is always marvellous to behold, as is the child who can fearlessly fall backwards into someone’s waiting arms. That is the kind of faith Jesus wants of us.
One year I was asked by the Oblates to go to my home town of North Battleford to put together a team for Indigenous ministry. I had joined the Oblates to be a missionary hoping to see the world, and I was being sent to my home town, the last place I wanted to go! Besides that, when I arrived there, I found a team of four people already doing Indigenous ministry who wondered what I was doing there. That was a moment when I was challenged to trust that God must have a reason for what seemed to me to be a very questionable assignment. The team of two sisters, a retired priest and a deacon candidate were gracious enough to allow me to join them, and I can honestly say now, looking back, that period of six years was not only very rewarding, but also challenged me to grow and mature in team ministry.
It strikes me that contemplative prayer can be a daily opportunity for us to trust God as we enter into the silence and open ourselves up to just “be” in God’s presence without actively doing anything. Actually, we are challenged by contemplative prayer to trust that the less we do, the more God can do within us.
Today the Church honours someone who truly lived the readings for today. St Peter Damian is a Doctor of the Church, so honoured for his writings, as well as his work for reform and renewal of the Church. Peter was born in 1007 into a large family in Ravenna, Italy. He was orphaned at a very young age, and the first brother to care for him treated him very badly. Another brother, however, recognized Peter’s brilliance and arranged for schooling. Perter appreciated this so much that he took on his brother’s name and called himself Peter Damian. He became a hermit monk and was eventually chosen superior of his community. In 1058 he was appointed bishop of Ostia. Throughout his life he fought for clerical reform and against the laxness and immorality of the clergy of his day. Eventually, he received permission from Pope Alexander to return to the simple life of a monk. He died in 1072.
Eucharist is also a deep act of faith. We trust in God’s word to nourish us. We believe these humble gifts of bread and wine, representing the totality of our lives, are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the Body and Blood of Christ. Most of all, we believe that we who receive are in turn transformed into the Body of Christ, sent out to be bread of life for the world.
May our celebration today empower us to be more and more childlike in our relationship with God, and help move our belief through faith and trust to a complete surrender of our lives and wills into the care of our God whom we believe and know to be love and only love.
