Finding God in the Rough Stretches (Mark 4:35-41)

Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 22 of Season 7 for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time  - June 23, 2024. Our Gospel reading is from Mark Chapter 4, verses 35-41.

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, “Quiet!  Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked 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 

“Finding God in the Rough Stretches,” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut

There's no doubt that life, especially today, can easily get the best of us and even overwhelm us at times. Just dealing with the normal business of a day can be a challenge and unnerve us. Not to mention the bigger catastrophes of life with which we must cope: illness, the death of those we love, dealing with our own demons of fear and change, dealing with our own aging process, and the changes that come along with facing challenges economically, personally, and the list goes on and on. It's easy to find ourselves extremely stressed,  and the bottom of our life can quickly fall out.  

As we're trying to negotiate the business of life and dealing with the feelings of betrayal at times and discomfort, and feeling overwhelmed  and stressed, we wonder where is God in the midst of all of this conflict and pain. If we're experiencing confusion or doubt, we want to know where God is and why it is that we must travel this road. 

Sometimes, we mistakenly compare ourselves to an elastic band, and we feel that when the band of our life is relaxed, then all is well. We can see the beauty of God around us. Life makes sense, and we have within a deep sense of peace. But then the changes start to occur. We find ourselves being stretched. Maybe in the course of our day at school, we find ourselves ridiculed and cast aside. Maybe the pressures of work are starting to mount. Perhaps my own physical challenges are getting the best of me, or the reality of death begins to encroach, and I feel stretched, and I feel pulled. And we long for that day when we can relax and return to what was, to recover this sense of equilibrium where all as well, and I can feel at home and at peace again.  

As we're pulled and as we're stretched, those stresses and those challenges and those changes can begin to become so great and so deafening that we may even find ourselves saying out loud. "How much more can I take before I break?  How much more can I deal with before this elastic band of my life snaps, and I simply fall apart?"  We've all said those words before. We've all been in that place at one time or another in our lives.  

As we contemplate that breaking point, and as we consider that point of which there is just simply too much and I cannot do anymore, what does that look like to us? If we can imagine ourselves broken, the circle of our lives shattered, what would that possibly look like to us?  You see, because when we hear the word "break," we immediately think of something that no longer functions, because we live in a world when things break, we replace them and we throw them out. They're no longer useful to us. They're usually beyond repair. As we consider the possible breaking point of our lives, is that how we see ourselves as now useless, cast aside and of no import any longer, unable to function? Just simply to be destroyed. 

As we consider the elastic of our lives, this band that stretches, the challenges and the changes that we're asked to endure, is it possible that maybe considering the way things were is an illusion? Maybe the call as people of faith is to see the stretch as the new normal of who we are. Let's face it: regardless of what the experiences in our lives are, the good and the bad, the difficult and the easy, those that are challenging, those that stretch us, those that make us feel that peace, the whole gamut of who we are, all blends into the tapestry of my life, and they form this fabric of my being and the essence of myself. And so, as I go through life's challenges and I'm stretched, maybe it's this stretched self that I need to make friends with. Maybe it's the change that I fear more so than what I may become that I must embrace and begin to love. 

Saint Augustine of Hippo said that we are to trust the past to God's mercy. Trust the past to God's mercy and the present to God's love, to God's love. And the future to God's providence; to God's providence. Another word for that would be God's care. As we go through the changes of life, as we bend and as we stretch, and as we encounter our struggles and our challenges and our changes, do we realize that God is a part of that process not absent from it? That even though we may not be aware and we cannot know for certain, and we cannot absolutely see that somehow God is working in the stretching,  forming us and assisting us into that new form of being so that now the stretched self is the self I now call home. It's in the stretched self that I now can discover peace. 

You know Jesus told his disciples, "Let us cross to the other side." You know, when we go out on a journey, and life causes us to change, if we start doing battle with the stretching, then the stretching becomes our enemy. If we start doing battle with the change or whatever malady places itself in our lap, whether it be our aging process or our fears, or the fact that we can't do things the way we used to, or the fact that life has changed in ways that I did not want them to. If we do battle with this stretching process, then we will only find ourselves angry and bitter and in a place of despair and without hope. Life will become a drudgery. 

As Job wrestled with this in his relationship with God, so do we, and we don't often trust that God is in the process. If God, who made the heavens and the earth and all the stars and what's in them, set things in the order that they are, and provides for all things, could also possibly care about me. 

The Lord says, let us cross to the other side. When we can't see the point of destination, it's scary, for sure. If we don't know what we're going to meet along the way, that's scary as well. But the Lord is telling us, "Do not fear," because whatever you encounter, however rough the waves get, no matter how tough the journey is, what is on the other side is worth all the effort you can give it. Because there's one thing about our faith that is one of the greatest treasures we have, and it's the gift of hope. Hope is eternal. Hope is eternal. God is never done. And as much as he's in the calm seas, he's also in the rough stretches of our life as well. All we have to do is hold on, endure, and trust. Hope is eternal. Never lose sight of that, and never lose hold of it. 

Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.