Memorial of St. Irenaeus

Scripture Readings: Am 3:1-8, 4:11-12; Mt 8:23-27

“Prepare to meet your God, O Israel.”   God—the text of the prophet continues: “The one who forms mountains and creates winds, and declares to man his thought.”  A lion roaring in the forest, a bird caught in a trap, friends agreeing to meet, a storm, a sleeping man, fear.

Pope Benedict speaks of the Word of God as a single word expressed in a multitude of ways, a “polyphonic hymn.” Even creation, he says, the liber naturae, “is an essential part of this symphony of many voices in which the one word is spoken.”

So, for Christians of faith, it is always the case:  “Prepare to meet your God.” Even in the apparently most trivial,

and the undeniably most horrible realities of life, there is God, and even a sleeping God is a prelude to resurrection.

Amos the prophet was also an exquisite poet, and poets, singing the polyphonic hymn that is the Word of God are also prophets. The poet Tennyson said that if we could but understand a single flower we might know who we are and what the world is.

St. Irenaeus, in his careful theological language, says as much or more:  The Word is through all things, while the Spirit is the living water he gave to those who believe in him and love him and know that there is one Father above all things and through all things and in all things.

How blessed are we if the Lord can say to us, “O you of little faith”; for even little faith can hear the sound of God among the trees, in the cool of the evening, in sorrow and loss, and in another’s pain.