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What’s the weekly mettle maker?
Training tips and educational info in support of our free programs, that’s what! What’s mettle? Mettle is, “The ability to meet a challenge or persevere under demanding circumstances; determination or resolve.”
What’s new?
Our program is now called HERITAGE ROUGH ‘N’ TUMBLE. To understand why we’ve made this change, read this post .
Skin in the game is now required. The program is still free if you can’t afford a donation of $1/month — but you have to at least hang out with the crew each week or volunteer to be a social media promoter, blogger, researcher, newsletter editor, fundraiser, mentor, artist, or even come up with your own idea.
No weekly fellowship this week — fr. mitch is on vacation!
Mettle maker #411: the Philosopher’s Stone
The Philosopher’s Stone is the mythical substance that turns lead into gold, heals any infirmity, and grants immortality. Discovering the Philosopher’s Stone was the Great Work of the alchemists, the early scientific pioneers of the Middle Ages (roughly 500 - 1500 AD). By the time settlers began arriving in the New World in the early 17th century, alchemy was no longer on the cutting age. Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Robert Boyle, and others were ushering in the so-called Age of Genius. But alchemy had already been embedded in the popular consciousness for a thousand years, and its ideas weren’t going anywhere. They still haven’t. Alchemy is no more. It’s terminology and metaphors persist, even to the present day.
So, in the world of Rough ‘n’ Tumble, what is the Philosopher’s Stone? Out of the everyday human heart’s solution, courage, genius, and spiritual insight sometimes precipitate. What makes a man into a Boone, Crockett, Lewis, or Clark? A Henry, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, or Lafayette? A Thoreau or a Whitman?
Well, what is it that causes an oyster to make a pearl?
An annoying grain of sand.
Heritage Rough ‘n’ Tumble is not a free diploma mill where you can sign up, get free lessons, and magically receive a certificate to frame on the wall. What we do is ask you tough questions, get on your nerves, and challenge you to do better. Whether you are total rookie or a UFC Hall-of-Famer, we make you work.
Does that sound like your cup of tea? Then you might be interested in our totally free program that incorporates self-defense, fitness, outdoor skills, and spiritual development. Sign up for our free Rough ‘n’ Tumble Distance Learning Program!
Normally church is live on Sundays at 10 AM EST but this week Fr. Mitch is on vacation, so it has been recorded in advance — see below.
Homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time 6/23/24 – Father Mitch
Readings: Jb 38:1, 8-11, Ps 107:23-24, 25-26, 28-29, 30-31, 2 Cor 5:14-17, Mk 4:35-41
Mark 4:35-41 World English Bible
On that day, when evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples:
“Let’s go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the multitude, they took him with them, even as he was, in the boat. Other small boats were also with him. 37 A big wind storm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so much that the boat was already filled. 38 He himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and asked him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are dying?”
39 He awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? How is it that you have no faith?”
41 They were greatly afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Brothers and sisters, this week’s readings announce the freedom that belongs to us in Christ. Remember that: freedom. Freedom is the gold vein that, if we follow it as it runs through all these readings, will lead us to the primary deposit of wisdom, the mother lode, shared by all three. Not freedom as in “freedom to do whatever you want” but freedom as in “freedom from bond bondage.”
In our reading from Job, God warns us to remember who is master of the sea and the clouds. Keeping this in mind, and being a patient and righteous man, Job receives double what he has lost when all is said and done. And St. Paul says in our epistle reading that, “the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all, therefore, all have died.” (2 Cor 5:14). We are dead to our old selves and reborn in Christ. You might say that, as Job accepted God’s authority and received freedom from suffering – and an extra measure to boot – so do we receive relief from our worries, sufferings, and fears – and eternal life as well – when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior and clothe ourselves in him.
In our Gospel reading, it shouldn’t be shocking to the disciples when Jesus calms the storm and delivers them safely to shore. And yet it is. They are filled with awe and say to one another, “Who then is this whom even the wind and sea obey?” Perhaps that’s understandable, given that they had not yet witnessed the Resurrection. But knowing what we know now, we have no need to doubt that Jesus, the Creator and Logos on earth, could and did still the waters. Was it not he who, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, hovered over the face of the deep in Genesis 1:2? Was it not he who, as it says in Job, created land, sea, and clouds? When we are in need of freedom from the storms of life, who other than the Creator could possibly still them?
Brothers and sisters, there will be storms, disease, tests, tragedies, horrors, fears, mishaps, and difficulties of all kinds. And like the disciples in today’s reading, we might be tempted to ask, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are dying?” God does care, and cares deeply, for all those who suffer in this fallen world. But, in the fullness of time, all who trust in him will be made whole, and like Job, we will receive double. As Jesus says in John 16:33, “In the world you will have trouble. But take courage; I have overcome the world.”