Fr Patrick Ponders...: On Rivers in the Desert

Sunday, 12 September 2021

On Rivers in the Desert

5 September 2021, Trinity 14, Year of Mark

Isaiah 35:4-7a

James 2:1-10, 14-17

Mark 7:24-37

Excerpt from Reflection (Sermon)

When Isaiah says “waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water”, he is referring to something that does occur in real life, naturally. While for most of the year, the desert in the Holy Land seems pure desert, as dry as a bone, when the rain comes, it can happen that suddenly, as if from out of nowhere, whole rivers can appear. It’s shocking, and it can be a torrent. What is happening is that, all the time, there are little, feeble, underground streams. Normally they are invisible, buried, and, of course, useless. But the rains “get in touch with them” (you might say), and then they flood their own little hollows, and appear. It’s impressive. It’s dramatic.

I want to say that this is telling us something. It is telling us that the desert is never only desert. Even the desert can – suddenly – become a place of gushing water, and fertility, of growth, of life.

It seems that in our spiritual lives (our lives of prayer) it can happen from time to time, and maybe for long stretches of time, that our prayer life itself feels like a desert, or a wilderness. Either totally dry and deadening, or wild and uncomfortable. But the desert is never only desert. The desert of our lives is never only desert. In our spirit too, there can appear, and suddenly, streams, or torrents, or even stately rivers of life, of new life, of newness, of health. We can look for these. We can be sure that, given time, they will come.

I’ll say more: all the heroes of our faith are actually clear that there is something we can do to bring at least a few drops of healing to our dried-out spirits. The something we can do is: say thank you to God, give thanks to God, express gratitude, in our own words, or in set prayers, or psalms or whatsoever. Be just a little bit more ready to give thanks to God. Then the rains of God’s spirit will be eased upon you.

If the idea of a desert-become-a-torrent-of-water doesn’t fit, for you, as you can’t imagine it, well, one thing I know for sure you can imagine is rain. It’s September now, and it will rain, and soon enough. So here’s a different image. I’ll finish with this. It comes from a modern saint, Thomas Merton, who speaks about noticing rain (really, noticing, attending to rain) in a new way. Here he is.

“What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows! Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.”

Amen.

Prayers for the World and Our Needs (Intercessions)