Wednesday,
January 7, 2015
First Reading: 1 Jn 4:11-18
Gospel Reading:
Mk 6:45-52
(…) 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 leaving to work in Qatar. On the day of his departure his girlfriend gave him her picture. She had the picture enhanced 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).
When the disciples took Jesus for a ghost he assured them, saying, “It is I, do not be afraid”. These are no magic words. They draw power from intimate relationship which can ward off fear. If the disciples knew him so well, how could they have taken him for a host? Could it be that their knowledge of him was only skin deep?
Where relationship is strong fear has no power to scare. This is what Jesus meant when he said “Fear is useless, what is needed is faith”. Faith in the person of Jesus with whom one is intimately related makes fear useless. This is because where fear appears insurmountable God’s presence is total, that is, 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. So the Holy Trinity was present because when the Father and the Son are present the Holy Spirit is there. 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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