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| NOT the front campus of our parish, but there IS starting to be a resemblance. Just sayin'. |
Twice in two nights, the skies grew dark, trees swayed in the quickening wind, distant thunder rumbled, and I brought in the flag from the doorway. Twice in two nights, my mother texted from twenty-five miles west, It’s raining! Twice in two nights, the windows clattered with the solid sound of driven precipitation, and there was a rattle from the roof. And twice in two nights, even as all this happened, the sun broke through to evening brightness again. We got nothing. Oh, wet pavement, sure; damp leaves, but dry ground beneath the trees. Very dry, parched ground.
We need rain. It seems we need it more here, in our zip code and on our campus, than they need it even nearby. Those storms that missed us did not miss everybody. A few weeks ago, I was visiting up near Saint Patrick Church in Norbeck, and as I left the weather broke. I drove homeward along the Inter-County Connector in monsoon conditions that threatened to sweep all vehicles from the road. I entered Woodmoor and found the pavement bone dry wherever there was tree cover. Sigh.
Fr. Novajosky returned from his walk through Sligo Creek Park the other commenting on the fallen leaves that were crunchy underfoot – in July. This bodes not well for a beautiful autumn!
My preoccupation has been the trees I planted eighteen months ago, having thrived through their first year but still young and vulnerable. Mr. Anthony Dao, who sees to the care of all our things, takes his barrow and bucket to water them several times a week. Clearly, he need not spend his time mowing the brown lawn. He took advantage of that respite to take a week’s leave, during which I made several trips to the struggling dogwood opposite my door to tip the refreshing contents of my largest pasta pot.
We Catholics know that we cannot control the weather, but we know who can. We turn to the Lord God of all creation for help now just as much as in earlier times. All our understanding and all our tools give us not one help to make the clouds water the earth! So, we pray.
This is the collect of the Mass that begs for rain: O God, in whom we live and move and have our being, grant us sufficient rain, so that, being supplied with what sustains us in this present life, we may seek more confidently what sustains us for eternity. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. This prayer is attributed to Saint Isidore the Farmer and is also the collect of the Mass for his feast day, May 15.
It is good to know what we can control, and what we cannot. Our helplessness before necessities turns us to our true help in what we need most, the One who loves us and saves us. Our needs help us recall our great and lasting need. Gerard Manley Hopkins, the nineteenth century English Jesuit priest and poet, made the link even more direct in his poem, 'Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend'
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Likewise, the all-powerful has used this powerlessness of ours to remind us of our need for Him in all things, as when He imposed a three-year drought on Israel to draw them back to Him from their infidelities. Let us watch for His help now with the same eager certainty that Elijah showed when that drought came to its promised end:
And (Elijah) said to his servant, "Go up now, look toward the sea." And he went up and looked, and said, "There is nothing." And he said, "Go again seven times." And at the seventh time he said, "Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising out of the sea." And he said, "Go up, say to Ahab, 'Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.'" And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. (1 Kings 18:43-45)
Monsignor Smith
