Strength in the Storm

A few weeks ago I stood in the middle of a violent storm at an airfield in Madrid with two million others, one of them being the Holy Father. It was wild, but in the midst of the wildness of the weather there was a calmness among the people. Pope Benedict stood there, not leaving (even though he was advised to do so) like a rock, the rock of Peter. Afterwards, the press reported that the normal crowd reaction in such cases is mass panic. When you have panic in a crowd of two million, there are inevitably deaths. There was no panic, so injury, no death, because there was something else there with us at Cuarto Vientos. That same spirit is with us tonight. 

The calmness we were able to hold in the storm taught us a lesson. Pope Benedict told us before he left: “Your strength is greater than the storm. With the rain the Lord has sent us many blessings. In this you are an example. As happened tonight, you can always with Christ endure the trials of life. Do not forget this.” We had done the impossible,and emerged soaked and happy! We learned the lesson.

Peter had to learn the lesson as well. He was being very generous, going beyond the confines of the Mosaic Law in offering to forgive his brother seven times. In reality he did not have to forgive him even once. This was big. However, Jesus blows him out of the water and demands that he do the impossible. What Jesus suggests is madness, but Jesus does it with a straight face….  he is serious. Of course it is madness, and of course it is impossible, but with the Holy Spirit it is possible… forgiveness is possible, reconciliation is 

possible.

Today is the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York. My first memory of this tragedy is the horror of the planes flying into the towers, The second memory is the immediate outrage called  for righteous revenge in the style of the Mosaic Law, ‘an eye for an eye’. I am not so sure that Jesus would have been in the grandstand cheering for retribution. In fact I am sure he would not have been. Justice is to be sought and strived for in our lives, and the key plank to that effort is forgiveness. Benedict told us a few weeks ago: Dear young people do not be satisfied with anything less than truth and love. Do not be content with anything less than Christ.

This cannot be done without the active participation of the Holy Spirit, and it cannot be done by ourselves.  Without the Spirit it is simply impossible and without purpose.  Without each other, without the community of faith it is both humanly and divinely impossible. The Holy Father said during his homily at the Closing Mass: We can’t follow Jesus on our own. Anyone who would be temopted to do so would risk never encountering Jesus, or following a counterfeit Jesus. This of course means, he concluded Having faith means drawing support from the faith of your brothers and sisters.

Forgiveness and reconciliation without the Holy Spirit and each other is impossible. With each other, and strong in the Spirit, we can achieve heights of which others can only dream! That is the message of Christ, that is the message of the Holy Father, that is the message of two million young people in Madrid, and that is the message that our world needs to hear.

Homily 11th  September 2011, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time. St Vincent Pallotti, Kununurra.