Wednesday, January 8, 2014
First Reading:
1 Jn 4:11-18
Gospel Reading:
Mk 6:45-52
After the five thousand men were satiated, Jesus obliged his disciples to get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, towards Bethsaida, while he himself sent the crowd away. And having sent the people off, he went by himself to the hillside to pray.
When evening came, the boat was far out on the lake while he was alone on the land. Jesus saw his disciples straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, and before daybreak he came to them walking on the lake; and he was going to pass them by.
When they saw him walking on the lake, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But at once he called to them, “Courage! It’s me; don’t be afraid.” Then Jesus got into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were completely astonished, for they had not really grasped the fact of the loaves; their minds were dull.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
A story is told of a handsome nautical graduate who was hired by an employment agency to work in Qatar. On the day of his departure his girlfriend gave him her picture to remember her by. But she was so ugly that no amount of computer manipulation improved her looks in the picture. When the boy flipped the picture he read the following quote: “Do not be afraid, it is I” (Mark 6:45-52).
The Gospel verse quoted draws power from the capacity of intimate relationship to ward off fear. This makes us wonder why the disciples were scared when they spotted the Lord walking on the lake. The fact that they took him for a ghost could only mean that they only had a skin-deep knowledge of him.
Fear is useless in the light of faith. Where fear appears insurmountable God’s presence is total, meaning Trinitarian. Our basis today’s Gospel episode. When the disciples were straining themselves with the oars while battered by the winds, Jesus was there praying to his heavenly Father. Our moments of struggles are moments of full encounters with the Trinitarian God.
On this matter the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote: “It is precisely this communication with the Father while (Jesus) is “on the mountain” that makes him present and, conversely, the Church is, so to speak, the object of the encounter between Father and Son and thus herself anchored in the Trinitarian life.”
When we are struggling in fear God is with us in his Trinitarian presence as we become the object of encounter between Father and Son. Let nothing perturb us then. In faith, fear is useless. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website:www.frdan.org.
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