Dealing with the Mystery of God’s Plan

Homily: Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mark 4:26-34

13 June 2021

Fr. Ricky C. Montanez, AA 

In the past 14 months many awful things have happened to us or to people we know, and humanity, in general, making us wonder if all of it really is “part of God’s plan”.  As a priest, I have never had to conduct this many virtual blessings before cremation than in the recent months. I find myself at a loss for sufficient words of consolation for the bereaved.  A friend of mine contracted the virus and died so unexpectedly. He was a healthy 39-year-old, gone too soon. A few months ago, I was shocked to hear that a college classmate of mine had passed away. She had cancer but my classmates and I believed her treatment would succeed in extending her life. So many people are hurting from her loss. I cannot blame them for asking, “Where is God in all this? Has He been sleeping?” 

Our readings this Sunday give us two (2) learnings about God’s complicated relationship with His people. FIRST is that God has a master plan for all His people. In the passage from Ezekiel, God’s people were held in captivity in Babylon and they likely struggled to believe in God’s promise of deliverance. Imagine waking up every morning as a captive in a foreign land hoping and praying that would be the day God fulfills His promise of deliverance only for the sun to set with no change in the situation.  It was in their desperation that the prophet Ezekiel was sent to speak to them of God’s promised restoration for His people. Ezekiel uses the metaphor of the tender shoot from which their salvation shall come forth. God Himself will cultivate this chosen sprout until it reaches full growth. “It shall put forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar.” (Ezekiel 17:23) Note that the method is not an immediate one but a slow process of growth. According to Google, a Lebanon cedar grows 15 inches a year and reaches 100 feet in maturity. That means, it takes roughly 80 years for a shoot to grow into its maximum height as a gigantic tree that can live up to 600 years!  This passage mirrors Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming of a Messiah who shall descend from the house of David, the son of Jesse. “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” (Isaiah 11:1) Do you know how long it took for Isaiah’s prophecy to be fulfilled?  About 700 years — from the time of Isaiah till Jesus was born!  In both stories, the metaphors end with a promise of a bountiful, prosperous future as suggested by the “fruitfulness” of the tree. It does however entail a lengthy passage of time that is indeterminate. This leads us to the SECOND learning — we need to be patient because everything happens in God’s time, not ours.  He is not a slave who does our bidding when we demand it. In the Second Reading, St. Paul advises the Corinthians to take courage and be steadfast in the midst of their struggles in life. As Christians they are to “walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) Life for them was not easy and Paul was not privy to God’s plan of deliverance for them. He could only advise them to develop eyes of faith to perceive the hand of God helping them through all of life’s adversities.  

Each of us has had to bear burdens during this pandemic —- to be afflicted with COVID, to lose loved ones, to lose a job, to suffer hunger, to struggle with sanity, etc. Some of our troubles are so challenging that it is difficult for us to imagine how we can overcome them. We are overwhelmed by the crushing fact that things are undeservedly failing around us and things are not working well in our lives.  I was not exempt from this experience.  For those of you who may not know, I am a religious priest seeking a broader experience of diocesan life. As an Assumptionist, I have had lengthy assignments in the US, South America, and most recently the United Kingdom. It was particularly difficult for me to be abroad when my mother became so sickly and I could not frequent her bedside to attend to her medical needs and comfort her. I felt that becoming a diocesan priest in the Philippines would allow me to be more available to her.  Unexpectedly, Mama died a few days after the lockdown of 2020. I was not even able to preside over her funeral mass nor witness the inurnment a year later. She was the reason I needed to stay and now she is gone. My heart was broken and I wondered what lay ahead for my priesthood. Despite my personal ordeal, I trusted God, serving Him and his people faithfully at Christ the King Parish throughout the height of the pandemic. Within days of Mama’s 1st Death Anniversary, I received word that I had been accepted in the diocese under conditional status as priest-on-loan. It has been a long wait but I believe the shoot has finally sprouted for me. The well of hope within me is now overflowing and I pray that my journey with the diocese will become a tree bearing much fruit. 

Finally, I’d like to share with you the story of a young girl with the stage name Nightbirde, who, just this week, secured the golden buzzer from judge Simon Cowell assuring her of a spot in the finals of America’s Got Talent. In her hauntingly beautiful voice, she sang an original composition about her journey with cancer. By age 30 she had 3 bouts with cancer. When she was first diagnosed, she had to stop working and her husband had also left her saying he did not love her anymore. In her blog, she talks about the difficulties of her treatments, her struggles with faith, her arguments with God, and her eventual surrender to His will. She won the first 2 battles with her disease. This time she has cancer in her liver, spine and lungs and was told she had a 2% chance of survival. Her experience taught her to trust God and to be always grateful for the people in her life and for the time she has to live. With a conviction that 2% is “not nothing”, she joined the talent competition to fulfill her dreams of becoming a singer. She wowed the judges with her talent, her cheerful disposition and her optimism. She said “[one] can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore until [one] decides to be happy”. Her Christian faith reminds her that no matter how bleak the days, God’s last word is not one of suffering but of wholeness and restoration. 

I have no definite answers as to how this pandemic and all the suffering it wrought fit into God’s plan. Only God knows that. I do know that God is always good and it is but logical that He desires only goodness for His beloved people. The consoling and transforming interventions of God (the reign of God) in our lives is often mysterious and imperceptible to us just as a scattering of the tiniest seeds and the sprouting of a small shoot. Our personal experiences of deliverance and renewal assure us that by God’s grace and in God’s time, the seeds will grow into the largest of plants with large shady branches, and the shoot can grow into a majestic tree.   For the moment, let us learn to live each day, with faith — filled with the hope and grace to live our life as fully as it comes.

If you want to help San Roque Parish, Bagumbayan, Quezon City, please get in touch with Fr. Ricky. Thanks.