Saturday, January 30, 2016 3rd Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: 2 Sam 12:1-7, 10-17 Gospel:Mk4:35–41
So they left the crowd and took him away in the boat he had been sitting in, and other boats set out with him. Then a storm gathered and it began to blow a gale. The waves spilled over into the boat so that it was soon filled with water. And Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.
They woke him up and said, “Master, don’t you care if we sink?” As Jesus awoke, he rebuked the wind and ordered the sea, “Quiet now! Be still!” The wind dropped and there was a great calm. Then Jesus said to them, “Why are you so frightened? Do you still have no faith?”
But they were terrified and they said to one another, “Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
When storm gathered and began to blow a gale, the waves spilled over into the boat and it was soon filled with water.
The Apostles did not know what was in store for them that night. The only weapon left was hope because although they were seasoned fishermen at home in the sea they were completely out of control.
But hope only took them that far. In the end fear also drowned their hope, and they panicked finding themselves at the brink of death.
Hope without faith is presumption of luck. It is only in faith that hope assumes a certain degree of assurance. As St. Paul describes in his letter to the Hebrews, “Faith is the assurance of what we hope for, being certain of what we cannot see” (Heb 11:1–2, 8–19). Faith immobilizes fear from drowning hope.
What was missing in the hope of the Apostles was the exercise of faith. Unless hope is exercised in faith, hope merely fans the embers of false expectations. It was only when they exercised their faith by waking Jesus up that they were saved.
After Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves, he rebuked the Apostles, saying, “Why are you so frightened? Do you still have no faith?” Jesus must have been shocked why they were so frightened when in fact he was just there sleeping in the cushion.
They had been with him for quite some time, yet they still lacked the right amount of faith to stand secure at threatening circumstances. Don’t we panic like the Apostles at some uncontrollable events like we don’t have Jesus in our midst? Christ is in our midst; he is our hope at every crisis situation.
The Apostles’ boat experience is the summary of our life experience of helplessness. Hope may keep us alive and persevering. But only faith can bring us salvation.— Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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