June 28, 2016 Tuesday
13th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Am 3: 1-8; 4: 11-12Gospel: Mt 8:23–27
Jesus got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning a fierce storm hit the lake, with waves sweeping the boat. But Jesus was asleep. They woke him and cried, “Lord save us! We are lost!” But Jesus answered, “Why are you so afraid, you of little faith?” Then he stood up and rebuked the wind and sea; and it became completely calm. The disciples were astonished. They said, “What kind of man is he? Even the winds and the sea obey him.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
A joke is told of a boat that was about to sink. Some passengers began calling upon God, shouting: “Santo Nino de Cebu, Hesus de Praga, Santo Entiero…!” A drunken man who knew so little about God yelled at them: “Aren’t we about to sink that you should still call for more passengers?” “We are calling upon the Lord”, they explained. The drunken man replied, “Whether drug lord or war lord, I doubt if these could keep this boat afloat!”
It was bad enough that the man was drunk, worse that he was also ignorant about God. It was too late to catechize him. Crisis time is too late a time to know the Lord for the first time. Consider what happened to the Apostles in today’s Gospel story. Suppose they did not know the Lord and they only had him in their company for the first time, would they even bother to wake him up? How convenient it was that they only had to wake Jesus up to solve their problem. Their knowledge of him may not have been that deep, but at least they were aware he had that capacity to save them one way or another.
Their knowledge of Jesus was confirmed when Jesus calmed the winds and the waves down with a mere rebuke. Jesus’ intervention deepened their faith further.
Crisis time is too late a time to know the Lord the first time. If God were a stranger in our lives we’d see no point calling out on him in the first place. Crisis will only harden the heart of those who do not know God. Like headless chickens they would be running around to every direction. They can even end up in self-pity. To those who know God and surrender to Him, every crisis becomes an occasion for God to intervene. The subsequent divine intervention will even deepen their faith, turning crisis into real spiritual surprises.
So let us strive to know the Lord while the shores of life are calm. Crisis time is not the conducive time to know the Lord because relationship really takes time to build. When the relationship is deep, God becomes part of us and we become part of God. No crisis can frighten us. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM.,MMExM, MAPM., REB. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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