+In the Name…
“He [Jesus] said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?’” (Mark 4:40)
To be caught in a storm at sea or on a lake is not a pleasant experience. Possibly some of you have experienced such an event, and you certainly were glad when either the storm passed or when you were able to stand on dry ground.
I remember several years ago, when at the conclusion of the St. Michael’s Conference in Massachusetts, I went on to another event on Long Island and chose to get there via the huge ferry that takes people and vehicles from Bridgeport, Connecticut to Port Jefferson, Long Island. It’s about an hour and a half crossing in good weather and with calm seas.
The journey I took one day in August in the early 90’s started off very smoothly, but a third of the way into the crossing a storm arose that tossed this huge vessel around like a toy boat in a bathtub. All of the passengers held onto anything stationary that they could find, and it was the rare person who wasn’t terribly seasick. A huge plate glass window that separated the snack bar from the open upper deck suddenly blew out of its frame, flew through the air, crashed against the wooden rail that surrounded the upper deck, shooting huge chunks of glass through the air as lethal projectiles- two or three of which struck passengers, causing arm and facial lacerations resulting in profuse bleeding and injury.
I suffered no injuries, just seasickness that still makes me nauseous when I think about that crossing of Long Island Sound. I remember seeing six ambulances waiting at the Port Jefferson Dock in readiness to respond to the injuries on board.
My three children can tell you stories about a few anxiety producing situations on the St. Lawrence River when yours truly was at the wheel of our small motorboat when a wonderfully beautiful and calm river changed so quickly into a body of water with rolling swells that rose to unsettling heights and fell an equal distance; or when the captain of the vessel (yours truly) ventured too close to a huge cargo ship to give the family a better look at it, and suddenly realized that this gigantic ship’s wake was rolling towards us like a tidal wave. Situations like these causing the children to scream or go silent in fear while the captain prayed and attempted to call to remembrance everything he had learned in the US Coast Guard course he has taken.
In this morning’s Gospel we heard that as Jesus and His disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee, “a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.” Jesus was “in the stern, asleep on a cushion.” The disciples were beside themselves in a panic, and took out their fear on Jesus with words that bordered on being a rebuke of Him - “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?”
“….He awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And then He questioned the disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” They made no answer, because they realized that they shouldn’t have been fearful. But they were because their faith in their Teacher was not deep and strong enough to abide when danger arose, with the accompanying temptation to succumb to fear.
St. Augustine, 4th century Bishop and Doctor of the Church, wrote in a sermon on this portion of the Gospel of St. Mark:
“Christian, Christ is asleep in your boat. Wake him up, and he will calm the storm of your fears….You are afraid because you are asleep; you are tossed about on the stormy desires raised by the breath of those who tempt you to do evil because you faith is asleep. ‘Your faith is asleep’ means you have forgotten your faith. To wake Christ means to awaken your faith, to recall what you believe. Remember your faith; wake Christ within you. You faith will immediately still the frightening winds and waves of those who tempt you to evil” (Sermones, 361, 7)
There are several instances where weakness in faith is a problem for the disciples, as it is for us. They needed and we need to awaken our faith from sleep by remembering the Faith of the Church, a faith we all have been given as a gift of the Holy Spirit- a faith we need to remember, claim, and appropriate by waking Christ within us, as St. Augustine preached, especially when fear is taking hold.
Our Adversary, the Devil, wants our faith in Christ Jesus to be weak, or even better to be lost. St. Peter in his first epistle general states, “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour.” And he then states emphatically, “Resist him, firm in your faith.”
Our faith is firm and remains firm when it is awake – meaning (as we have already heard from Augustine) that Christ is awake in us through our reliance on Him; and as we do the things that our faith requires – basic, simple things.
John Henry Newman, one of three great leaders of the Oxford Movement and in the near future to be beatified as a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church, once wrote: “Our weapons are simple and powerful. The Lord’s Prayer is one such weapon when we are tempted to sin. One or two holy texts, such as our Savior used when he was tempted by the devil, is another. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is another such, and greater; holy, mysterious, life-giving, but equally simple. What is so simple as a little bread and a little wine? But, in the hands of the Spirit of God, it is the power of God unto salvation.”
The 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, wrote a classic book titled The Gospel and the Catholic Church. It is the power of the Gospel and the religion of the Catholic Church which both provide to believers in Christ the instruments to have the storms of life calmed, and the attacks of evil neutralized.
As we have heard this morning, the voice and presence of Jesus is authoritative. His “Peace! Be still! to the storm; His “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” brings peace and calm to both creation and creature – no matter what the size and duration of the storm, or the number of demons (even it be a Legion of them), and the strength of them to hurt us.
Jesus said to His disciples before His Ascension to Heaven, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.” St. Paul writes in Philippians, “…God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
May we always call out to Him and call upon Him when needs require – storms, attacks, anxieties, uncertainties. He possesses the power and the authority to change things, and it resides and is found in Word and Sacrament for our good and for His glory.
Let us forever be grateful for and always ready to use what has been given to us in and through the Gospel and the Catholic Church.
+In the Name…
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