Bringing the Mountain to Our Valley

By Tom Ponchak
I had the opportunity to write a few bulletin reflections for our parish. I decided to reprint them here. I've included the date and readings for the Sundays for which the originally appeared.

AUGUST 1, 2010 (Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23 – Colossians 3:15-,9-11 – Luke 12:13-21)

In today’s first reading we listen to the words of “the preacher” from the book of Ecclesiastes. The author laments that “All things are vanity!” Ecclesiastes is truly a book for our times, on one hand despairing for the apparent meaninglessness of the daily grind. We work and toil for treasures that rust and fade away. The unrighteous prosper from their wicked deeds while the innocent suffer. Our hearts are restless day and night for something more, but we don’t know what that is or how to satisfy this desire. It’s song of living in the valleys of life when we hope for something more than what we can see.

If Ecclesiastes reminds us of the valley, then the Feast of the Transfiguration celebrated later this week calls us up to the mountain top. Jesus brings his closest disciples with him, literally “up the mountain to pray”. While there Jesus is transfigured, his body and clothes become dazzling white and he meets with Moses and Elijah. Peter immediately does what any of us would do; he pleads with Jesus to stay on this mountain top and in this moment of glory. How often, when we have spiritual experiences of feeling close to God, do we wish we could just stay right there holding on to those feelings?

Our spiritual journey will take us across many different terrains. We’ll experience valleys and mountain tops, droughts and showers. We must learn, as St. Paul did, to be “content in every situation”. St. John Vianney, whose feast is celebrated on August 4th, also learned this lesson. He was not the brightest student and struggled mightily with his studies in school. He was assigned to a small rural, out of the way parish. Yet, he learned that he could be as close to Jesus as he wanted in the valleys and on the mountain. It was his simplicity and pure devotion that drew large crowds to wait hours just to go to him for the sacrament of reconciliation.

This is the secret of the saints. They knew they couldn’t stay on the mountain, but they also knew that if they kept the Lord in their hearts they could bring the mountain top down into the valley. Jesus lead Peter, James and John down from the mountain an in the verses that follow today’s Gospel they immediately were drawn into ministry. We too need to rely on the strength we receive when we receive the Lord to bring light into our valleys, to give meaning to the routine of our lives.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Being and Doing

By Tom Ponchak
Image
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her." (Luke 10:42, from the Gospel for the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time) I was listening to a podcast with Fr. John Riccardo and he said something to the effect of “we often think that the calling to be a disciple is to work for Jesus, but the calling of a disciple is to be with Jesus.” The Gospel account of Martha and Mary this week is so important for us to hear and learn from.  Over the last six years, I have worked in two suburban parishes doing adult formation. Both parishes are located in very affluent areas and have a large number of upper middle class, white collar professionals. We have CEOs, attorneys, physicians, salespeople, pharmaceutical professionals, corporate executives, and even professional athletes. I’ve joked at times that our home could probably fit in the garages of some of the parishioners I kn
Read more

Cultural Insanity and The Christian

By Tom Ponchak
Image
On multiple occasions over the past year I’ve had a reoccurring dream. I find myself in an insane asylum where the inmates have taken over and have the appearance of zombies. I was going from room to room looking for other trapped people, some asleep and others unaware of what was happening, and leading them to escape. At the same time, I encounter a few of the insane zombies and I am able to cure them so they become “normal” and leave with us. I believe this is a prophetic dream speaking to the nature of our culture and our mission as Christians. In the early telling of the story of Narcissus in Greek mythology the young man become enamored with his own image and committed suicide after despairing that no one could love him as much as he loved himself. It’s from this story that modern psychology takes the name Narcissistic Personality Disorder to describe an individual with an inflated sense of their own purpose and a lack of empathy for others. The Mayo Clinic lists the followin
Read more

Living in the Right-side Up

By Tom Ponchak
Image
“Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him.” Colossians 1:15-16 (Second Reading from 15 th Sunday of Ordinary Time – July 10, 2022) I must confess that I love Stranger Things, the streaming series on Netflex*. If you’re not familiar with Stranger Things, it’s a sci-fi/horror show set in a fictional Indiana town in the mid-80’s where our core group of characters battle evil forces from the Upside Down, another dimension that is a corrupted copy of their own world. I love how they’ve nailed the whole 1980’s vibe from the music to the clothes to the freedom we had as kids to roam the town with little parental supervision. The storylines are suspenseful, and you get attached to the characters. The primary hero figure is Eleven, a girl with telekinetic superp
Read more