The Possible Dream

For God Nothing is Impossible - A Reflection on the Readings for the Memorial for St Alphonsus Liguori - Jerimiah 28:1-17, and Matthew 14:13-21

Painting by Tom Lund-Lack

     One of the great Broadway Musicals is the Man of La Mancha. In the play, failed author and tax collector Miguel de Cervantes has been thrown into a dungeon by the Spanish Inquisition. No hero, he is accused of foreclosing on a monastery. Not well liked, Cervantes has with him a manuscript which He then reads to the assembled prisoners to avoid their robbing him. He tells the story of Don Quixote who is a student of chivalry and thought so much about the need to counter injustice that it seems that he has lost his mind, or perhaps found it, and sets out as a knight-errant to “right the impossible wrong”.

     There is a scene in which Don Quixote laughably attacks a windmill which he mistakes for a four-armed giant. The world sees one man’s quest to give his all to right injustice as madness. It is from this story that we draw the expression, “to tilt at windmills,” to describe people who are insanely devoted to what seems to the world to be an impossible task, an unattainable dream, a lost cause. For the Christian, this is not madness, but a duty. It is the cross.

     There is a song which forms the theme of the musical called, “The Impossible Dream.”  The first half of the lyrics are:

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

And to run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

And to love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest

To follow that star

No matter how hopeless

No matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march, march into hell

For that heavenly cause

     For Cervantes, the “impossible dream” is to constantly strive for justice and to do so with a determination that would cause us to without question or pause, “march into hell for that heavenly cause.”  For the faithful, it means we cannot sit back and watch injustice unfold but we must do something. Our purpose is to fight against the current of evil in this world. To live is to seek to realize the dream of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. It is only in striving, with Christ working with us, in us, that we can achieve the impossible dream.

     Mother Teresa was asked what she could really achieve with an ocean of so much poverty and injustice all around her. Her reply was,

“It's only a drop in the ocean - but the ocean wouldn't be the same without that drop.”

     In the Gospel of Matthew 14:13-21, Jesus calls the disciples, calls us, to participate in striving for the impossible dream, the Kingdom of God, and then shows them what the Angel Gabriel declares to Mary that, “nothing will be impossible for God.” (Luke 1:37) No dream is impossible.

     In Jeremiah 28:1-17, we see the prophet Jeremiah facing off with Jewish Temple Authorities, the people, and their prophet Hananiah. Jeremiah predicted that the sins of the nations of Israel and Judah will result in the Babylonians destroying the temple and enslaving the Jewish nation. The reading dramatically illustrates the sort of clashes that Jeremiah became involved in when carrying out his mission from the Lord. He has harsh things to say, and meets resistance from the people, who began to believe that nothing that offends their sensibilities or contradicts their desires can come from God. They define who God is. Sound familiar? This is foolishness! If I define who God is, based on my desires, haven’t I made myself God?

     Jeremiah does not back down, and the Lord gives him the strength to stay true to his calling. Jeremiah continues to warn and call the people to conversion at the risk of his own life. One might say that Jeremiah was “tilting at windmills.”  He is dreaming the seemingly impossible dream.  Prophets are often like that. The world sees prophets as crazed zealots who are foolishly devoted to a hopelessly outdated God. As opposed to this world view, distorted by sin, prophets see the world clearly, as God sees it. They desire for the world what God desires. Because they understand the danger of sin and also see the desire and love that God has for the world and what that looks like, they are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to further God’s will.  The world calls this an impossible dream. The prophet sees this as the gloriously achievable Kingdom of God on earth. The impossible dream is by no means impossible. You may recall that through your baptism you become prophet, priest, and king. We are all called to proclaim truth into the world. God calls us to announce not the impossible, but the possible dream.

     In the Gospel, masses of people followed Jesus into the wilderness to hear Him speak, to witness the miracle of God among them. We hear that when the Lord “saw the vast crowd, His heart was moved with pity for them...” (Matt 14:14 NABRE) At the time, the heart was more than an organ in the circulatory system. It was the very seat of life, the center of one’s being. The word pity in Greek can also be interchangeable with compassion, literally to join in suffering with the other. From the very seat of our Lord’s being, He is moved with compassion when the world, the wilderness, makes it so hard to draw near to God. Yet, He knows that the faithful, the Church, must play our part in the miracle of reconciling the world with God, the impossible dream. We cannot just toss the problem over the fence to God in prayer and then say, “I have done enough.”  He tells the disciples who are concerned with feeding the crowd, “give them some food yourselves.” (Matt 14:16) We have our part to play.

     It is when the disciples offer the Lord all the food they can find, five loaves of bread and two fish, that the food, the blessing, is multiplied and the feeding of five thousand families, more than 15,000 in all, is accomplished. The impossible is made possible. What is only dreamed of is made real and the miracles overflows with abundance.

     The Lyrics of the Impossible Dream end with this:

And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable, the unreachable, the unreachable star

And I'll always dream the impossible dream

Yes, and I'll reach the unreachable star

     The unreachable star, heaven on earth, the Kingdom of God revealed, is made possible through our cooperation in every miracle. Is our cooperation required? No! God can do anything. But God knows we need to play our part, pick up our cross, for it is only in sacrifice that love overflows through us. So, when someone comes to you in need, do not simply say, “I will pray for you” and then walk away. The Lord asks of us, “give them some food yourselves.” So, roll up your sleeves and the impossible becomes very possible, the dream becomes the reality of the Kingdom of God on earth. This kingdom is an impossibility for the world. For the Christian, it is a certainty. True life only comes into the world when it has its source in the Lord and flows through our hands.

Endnotes:

Groban, Josh. The Impossible Dream. AZ Lyrics, www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/joshgroban/theimpossibledream.html. Accessed 31 July 2022.

Lund-Lack, Tom. Tilting At Windmills. Absolutearts.Com / Wwar.Com, 30 Sept. 2017, www.absolutearts.com/painting_oil/tom_lund-lack-tilting_at_windmills-1506792029.html.

New American Bible. Revised Edition. Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011. Print.