September 12

Ps 104:21 The young lions roar for their prey,

and seek their food from God.

22 At the rising of the sun they gather;

and they go to lie down in their dens.

The Caged Skylark (Hopkins)

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage
Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells—
That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.

Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage,
Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest—
Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest,
But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best,
But uncumbered: meadow-down is not distressed
For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

Meditation

The evangelist Matthew describes the tempest as an upheaval of the earth (the Greek word he uses is seismos). Matthew uses the same term for the earthquake that took place at the moment of Jesus’ death and at the dawn of his resurrection. Christ rises above this upheaval, his feet firmly planted. Already here, the Gospel enables us to catch a glimpse of the Risen Lord, present in our confused history. Jesus’ rebuke to the wind and the sea demonstrates his power to give life and salvation, a power greater than those forces that cause creatures to tremble.

So, we can ask ourselves once more: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt 8:27). The hymn from the Letter to the Colossians that we have heard seems to answer this very question: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created” (Col 1:15-16). Buffeted by the storm that day, his disciples were overcome with fear; they were not yet able to profess this knowledge about Jesus. Today, however, in accordance with the faith handed down to us, we can go further and say: “He is the head of the Body, the Church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent” (v. 18). Those words, in every age, make us and commit us to be a living Body: the Body of which Christ is the Head. Our mission to care for creation, to foster peace and reconciliation, is Jesus’ own mission, the mission that the Lord entrusts to us. We hear the cry of the earth and we hear the cry of the poor, because this plea has reached the heart of God. Our indignation is his indignation; our work is his work. (Pope Leo XIV)

Musical Selection (Herbert F. Brokering; b. 1926)

Earth and all stars, loud rushing planets, sing to the Lord a new song!
O victory, loud shouting army, sing to the Lord a new song!
He has done marvelous things. I, too, will praise him with a new song!
Hail, wind, and rain, loud blowing snowstorms, sing to the Lord a new song!
Flowers and trees, loud rustling dry leaves, sing to the Lord a new song!
He has done marvelous things. I, too, will praise him with a new song!
Trumpet and pipes, loud clashing cymbals, sing to the Lord a new song!
Harp, lute, and lyre, loud humming cellos, sing to the Lord a new song!
He has done marvelous things. I, too, will praise him with a new song!
Knowledge and truth, loud sounding wisdom, sing to the Lord a new song!
Daughter and son, loud praying members, sing to the Lord a new song!
He has done marvelous things. I, too, will praise him with a new song.

Prayer