HEY GUYS, WAKE UP!
Saturday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
In today’s Gospel, we find the apostles in a boat being tossed about by the wind. Jesus comes to them walking on the water, gets in the boat and the sea becomes calm. This time he is already in the boat, asleep. The apostles become frightened as the waves grow higher and water comes into the boat. They awake him and he quiets the wind and waves. This is another lesson for them to learn from.
Many lessons, many experiences are required for us to learn. For we tend to easily forget the meaning of past happenings. Or we never were aware of any meaning in the first place. How much more quickly we could learn if we would just take more time to learn from our own immediate history, the many daily events in our own lives! From all that happens, we can learn.
“Why are you terrified? Why are you lacking in faith?” Jesus says. In other words, “I am with you. Where is your confidence?” It took the apostles a long time to completely trust in Jesus. They had to experience over and over his care and protection. And they could see him visibly. Later, they would no longer see him. It would take much stronger faith.
How about us? We’ve never seen Christ. And we are asked to believe and have confidence. Much is asked of us. To learn and acquire solid confidence in God’s presence and protection we must look back in our lives and see that we made it through the many hurdles, sorrows, even tragedies that came along. God was with us. And he will continue to be with us in all the future good and unpleasant surprises of life. We can become confident, however slow the process may be.
But we must learn to look, discover, and become aware that Jesus is always with us using all his power and love for our good, whether he seems to be asleep or awake.
