Across the Deep Water
Across the Deep Water
It helps to have two patron saints. Any local church can use all the prayer they can get! So we get to have two patronal feasts on a Sunday, Saint Monica’s on May 4th, and Saint James the Greater on July 25th. At the same time, May 4th this year falls on the 3rd Sunday of Easter. The first three Sundays of Easter always have a Resurrection appearance as their Gospel reading. So, this Sunday at St. Monica and St. James is a blended Sunday, with both collects and half our scriptures (Old Testament and psalm) from St. Monica, and half (Epistle and Gospel) from 3rd Easter. And on this 3rd Sunday of Easter in particular, the common image in the life story of St. Monica and in this particular appearance of the risen Jesus is water and the distance from the security of one’s land.
In The Episcopal Church’s book of saints, Lesser Feasts and Fasts, saints are designated apostles, martyrs, prophets, reformers, bishops, priests, deacons, mystics. Monica is simply designated the Mother of St. Augustine of Hippo, to which I would add the most tenacious and patient mother in all Christendom. She followed her talented son from their home on the North African coast (modern day Algeria) to Italy, and kept at him until, by her patience and prayer, the mentoring of Saint Ambrose the Bishop of Milan, and the groaning Spirit within restless Augustine himself, he was baptized. Monica practiced the same kind of “candid piety” that the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann attributes to Hannah in 1st Samuel. For those tempted to present only their best selves to God, today we have the example of two holy women who held nothing back of their frustrations and their hopes before God.
After his baptism, Monica, Augustine and her other son traveled from Milan to Rome, and were preparing to sail from the port of Ostia back to North Africa, when Monica fell ill. Here's the rest of her story from Lesser Feasts and Fasts: Augustine writes, “One day during her illness she had a fainting spell and lost consciousness for a short time. We hurried to her bedside, but she soon regained consciousness and looked up at my brother and me as we stood beside her. With a puzzled look, she asked, ‘Where was I?’ Then, watching us closely as we stood there speechless with grief, she said, ‘You will bury your mother here.’
“Augustine’s brother expressed sorrow, for her sake, that she would die so far from her own country. She said to the two brothers, ‘It does not matter where you bury my body. Do not let that worry you. All I ask of you is that, wherever you may be, you should remember me at the altar of the Lord.’ To the question of whether she was afraid at the thought of leaving her body in an alien land, she replied, ‘Nothing is far from God, and I need have no fear that he will not know where to find me, when he comes to raise me to life at the end of the world.’” Looking out over the Mediterranean between her and her homeland, thankful for her restless son finally finding the rest of God, Monica knew that, trusting Jesus, there is no distance whatsoever between God and God’s faithful people,
Peter and the other disciples are only about a football field away from shore in today’s gospel. But somehow even that short distance is enough for them to fail to recognize their Lord. Scholars have noted the similarity between this story and Luke’s version of Jesus calling Simon Peter, which happens near the beginning of that gospel. In that version, Jesus has gotten in the boat with Simon so that people on the shore could hear him, and after a long night in which Simon has caught nothing, Jesus suggests, “Go out into the deep water and drop your nets for a catch.” In both Luke and John, after all night of catching nothing, Simon suddenly catches more fish than his boat can hold.
Whether you’re only 100 yards, or a mile, or a sea, or even an ocean away from your homeland, there is no distance whatsoever between God and God’s trusting, or faithful people. That is especially true of those people who claim this North African woman as their patron and ask for her prayers, whose ancestors did not come to this land but were brought over deep water to this land, who have recognized the voice of the suffering Jesus in their own sufferings. Monica had faith that there was no water too deep for Jesus to find her, and I trust that she recognized him on that other shore. By her intercession, may we all trust, and recognize Him when He calls to us as he called to Simon Peter and the others: “Children, don’t you have any fish?…Come eat breakfast.”
May 4th, 2025
3rd Sunday of Easter and Feast of St. Monica
The Rev. David Kendrick