I’d like to tell you a story about a time in my life when I almost died, one of the times that I almost died. I spent a summer with the seminary, and I went to El Salvador. Before that, we went to Guatemala to learn Spanish and to take classes. We were in this beautiful old town called Antigua, and we had our weekends free. We went to school all week, and then on the weekends, it would be free. We would go on different excursions, and this weekend we decided to go to a place called Monterrico. It sounded like a beautiful place to me, and it had a black sand beach, all volcanic black sand. It was very unique and beautiful.
When I got to the beach, the biggest waves that I had ever seen came in. They had to be twelve feet something, just huge coming in. I love water. I love surfing. I love water skiing. I love swimming and diving. I looked and I thought, I have to ride one of these waves. So, I ran out there and tried to swim over the first wave. I was having trouble getting even over the first wave, over the first break, to get to the second wave to ride it. I finally got over the first wave and as I did I realized very quickly that I was out of control and that the undercurrent was sucking me in.
As I mentioned, I’m a very strong swimmer so I thought, no problem, I can swim out of this. I just started swimming. I did the thing you’re not supposed to do, which is swim directly to the shore. You’re supposed to swim out of it or just rest. I swam as hard as I could to get over the first wave, and I couldn’t make it. The waves just kept bringing me back and crashing over me, bringing back further and crashing me over. My friends, the seminarians, were on shore, and they were screaming, “Come back in. Come back in.” I’m like, “I’m trying!”
As the waves keep crashing over me, and I’m getting more and more tired because I’m swimming really hard to try to get back in, one of them crashes over me. I had my mouth open, and I sucked in a mouth full of water. At this point I can’t breathe. I’m kind of choking on the water and the waves keep crashing and crashing over me. I was getting so tired that I finally just let myself rest. I would just sink in the water and let myself rest for a little bit until I got enough energy. Then I would try again to swim out. I did this a few times and realized it was completely futile. There was no way I was getting out of this predicament. I was totally exhausted.
By the way, I learned at this point that drowning is not a horrible way to go because I was so tired, I didn’t care. So, the last time I’m sinking, and I’m done. I thought, okay, this is how it’s going to end. It was interesting because I realized at that point I hadn’t asked God for help. The whole time I was just swimming and trying to get into the shore, and I was preparing myself for death. I thought, all right, this is how it’s going to end, I guess. I just let go.
Then I heard a voice say, “Try one more time.” It was not only a voice, but it felt like a little tap of encouragement. I didn’t even question it. I just tried one more time, and I swam, and I swam out of it, and I was able to get back onto the shore. But what occurred to me is how late in the game I turned to God when the waves were coming. When the waves of life are crashing at us, I find that a lot of times I try to handle it myself. I try to get back into shore with my own strength, with my own energy. That was kind of an eye opener for me because I realized that I wasn’t able to do it, and it wasn’t until that moment that I completely surrendered, and I said, “I’m done,” that I heard that voice say, “Try one more time.” It was from that voice, which I do believe was an angel, that got me to try one more time and swim out of the wave.
I think this happens to me in dreams, too. Have you guys ever had nightmares where you show up for something, maybe you show up for school and you don’t have your backpack? Or I show up for Mass and there are no books anywhere. Nightmares where we don’t have what we think we need to have to do what we need to do. I notice in my dreams it’s interesting because I don’t call out to God in my dreams. I hope by the end of my life that calling out to God will become so second nature that it will happen in these situations that I might get into, but even so much so that it gets into my dreams, that it permeates my subconscious, and even then, I would call out to God.
We hear in the first reading from Kings, Elijah is on this journey and he’s completely exhausted, and so he lays down next to this broom tree and he falls asleep. He’s so tired that he says to the Lord, “Take my life.” He doesn’t even want to live anymore. An Angel comes to him and brings him some hearth cake, actually touches him and says, “Eat, for the journey will be too long.” He goes back to sleep again and the Angel comes back to bring some more manna and says, “Eat now, get up, for the journey will be too long.” That time he listens.
Jesus is telling us in the gospel today, he’s revealing to us the real presence in the Eucharist. He’s saying, “I am the bread of life. Do not work for food that perishes but work for the food that brings eternal life.” Jesus is the one that brings us life. Jesus is the one that can get us out of those situations that our own human energies can’t get us out of.
I want you to think about times in your lives where you felt like you were drowning. The waves of life just come crashing over, and over, and over again, and you felt like you weren’t going to make it. I don’t know why we have to wait until we’re almost dead to call out to God. I think it’s something that we should do right at the very beginning when we find ourselves in the storm, right at the very beginning when we find the waves crashing. Call out to God and surrender to him and say, “Lord, I offer myself to you,” and allow him to energize us.
At the end of Mass today, I’m going to introduce you to a novena, and it’s called, “The Surrender Novena”. It’s a beautiful novena that Jesus revealed to this priest. The whole idea of The Surrender Novena is that everything in our lives can and ought to be surrendered to God, meaning that we shouldn’t try to handle anything by ourselves. Everything should be given to him and should be surrendered to him. Sometimes we think that it’s irresponsible if we don’t take care of things ourselves. Far from that. The most responsible thing that we can do in any situation is to say, “God, here you go. Here’s the situation that I’m in. You take care of it.”
Just going back to that image of drowning, not knowing to call out to God and tell him, “I’m completely and utterly exhausted.” God does reach out, give me the energy to swim more. Maybe you find yourself in life right now overwhelmed, the waves of life are just crashing, crashing, crashing over you. Instead of trying to swim out ourselves, instead of trying to save ourselves, we can turn to God. The beautiful thing is we don’t have to wait until we’re almost dead, until we’re almost drowned to turn to God. We can turn to him now and we can offer him everything that is in front of us, every wave that is coming towards us, every difficulty that is coming towards us. He wants to give us the Bread of Life. He wants to give us his very self. As we receive him in this Eucharist, we receive that strength to keep going, to receive that strength which is like that last little nudge to swim out of whatever break we’re caught in. We receive that gift of life. So, let’s call out to God together.
I just invite you to close your eyes after the homily for a few moments. Is there any area of your life right now that you have not surrendered to God? Is there any area in your life where you said, “I’m going to try to take care of this. I’m going to manage this,” instead of saying, “God, can you help me manage this?” Let’s all surrender together today to God as we receive him in the Bread of Everlasting Life, the Eucharist.
