Sunday, January 21, 2015
12th Sunday
in Ordinary Time
1st Reading:
Job 38:1-4,8-11
2nd Reading: 2Cor 5:14-17
Gospel: Mk 4:35-41
On that same day when evening had come, Jesus said to them, “Let’s go across to the other side.” 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)
We are not sure what the future holds for us. But hope allows us to reasonably expect better tomorrows. Fear, however, can spoil hope. Fear feeds on future factors that whisper tidings of woes to us and on past events that hound us. Squeezed by both past and future, we stand helpless in the present.
This was the experience of the Apostles while they were on their own in the boat on that stormy night. The Apostles did not know what to do. Although they were seasoned fishermen at home in the sea, things were completely out of their control. Fear paralyzed them. They panicked finding themselves at the brink of death. Can hope prevail over fear?
Hope prevails over fear when faith is alive. Strong faith in God clothes hope with a certain degree of certainty. 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 sets us free from fear of the unknown. What was missing in the hope of the Apostles was the exercise of faith. Exercising their faith they woke up Jesus. When they did, they got the salvation they had hoped for that night.
The Apostles’ boat experience is the summary of our life experience of helplessness. Look back to the times when you were in crisis but your faith was strong. Results may not have been favorable yet your relationship with God grew stronger. But look back to the times when you only had hope because your faith had died. Even if results were favorable you still ended up blaming God. Hope keeps us alive but it might just be about false expectations. Only hope engendered by faith brings salvation. — Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM., MAPM. ([email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org).
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