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Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “Then he got into the boat followed by his disciples. Suddenly a storm broke over the lake, so violent that the boat was being swamped by the waves. But he was asleep. So they went to him and woke him saying, 'Save us, Lord, we are lost!' And he said to them, 'Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith?' And then he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. 27They were astounded and said, 'Whatever kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?'’ ” (Mt 8, 23-27).
In the Gospel Jesus repeatedly urges the apostles and those who wish to follow him to have faith in Him, not to give in to the temptation - the most insidious for every believe - to doubt his almighty power. Through faith in Christ we are saved and justified (cfr. Rom 3, 28), this is why trust is important and central in the teaching of Jesus: “what ever you ask for with faith in prayer, you will obtain” (Mt 21, 22) and we can understand the Lord's question: “when the Son of man comes will he find faith on the earth?” (Lk 18, 8).
In theory we can say quite easily that we have faith in the Lord, that we accept the plan of his divine providence, but when in practice, things fail to go as we desired, planned or foresaw, then we continue to have faith in Jesus only we give our entire being to Him. As the Holy Father reminds us “faith cannot be only theory: it must be life” (Benedict XVI, homily 29 June 2009).
We might say that an act of faith, of profound faith in Him, is authentic when it comes with total giving of self: “expropriating” our “I” we make a gift of it to God, so that the thousand and one concerns of life are no longer obstacles between us and Him.
The episode of the apostles, frightened by the storm, on the sinking boat full of water, is emblematic and always rich in meaning for our life of faith. On that “boat” the apostles experience in practice, that their life is at stake, suspended between life and death, salvation and total destruction. Jesus, however, is asleep! Whenever his intervention is really needed, it happens, unexplainably, that he is asleep. In this sort of situation the faith of the apostle and our own faith is put to the test.
Faith is tested when: some we were fond of is lost; the “earth” is suddenly missing under our feet; our expectations are disappointed; events are against us; sickness or death present themselves… When this happens this tells us clearly that it is a moment of testing and that the Lord therefore, is “passing” in our life to ask us to deepen our faith and he says to us too: “do not be afraid, just continue to have faith!” (Mk 5, 36). Although to us he might appear to be sleeping, He is there in the middle of the test, in our boat battered by the waves. He uses those waves to “shake up” our little faith which is perhaps asleep or in danger of falling asleep. It is not He who “sleeps”, we fall asleep unless he keeps us awake!
When the test is difficult, as it was for the apostles on the boat, then besides a valuable opportunity to “verify” whether the faith is theoretic or practical, we are offered the challenge of a faith not conditioned by earthly results, but entirely focussed on the Lord. It is as if the Jesus who sleeps, who will not help us– at least it feels like this when we are tried - is actually challenging us, lovingly, to reach faith which is nourished only on trust in his Love. Like a father challenges his child asking him to have blind trust in him. In fact only when our faith is “blind”, only when we put all our trust in Jesus , can the greatest miracles, and they are spiritual not material, happen: they provoke true conversion in the soul, impulse for things, eternal, divine, leaving in the heart holy indifference for everything else, which instead passes.
This sort of faith led Saint Teresa of Jesus to declare: “let nothing trouble you, nothing frighten you. Everything passes, but God does not change. Patience obtains everything. The one who ahs God, lacks nothing. God is enough” (Poetry number, 9). We can only say “God is enough” when we have learned to experience trials, expecting everything from God. We must allow God to act freely and when he wills in his own good time, which is not our time. Saint Teresa of Avila, who was familiar with the “times” of God's action, rightly said “ Patience obtains everything ”.
We do not make a good impression if we brusquely awaken Jesus, as the Apostles did gripped by fear stemming from doubt, or to reprove him as Martha did, preoccupied with her worries: “ 'Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me.” (Lk 10, 40). Martha, as we too often, scold Jesus for not intervening.
In the Year of the Priesthood, in which the Cure of Ars, is lifted up as an example for those of us who are priests, the faith life of the sacred minister cane grow stronger according to the model of the saints, beginning with the unsurpassable example of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Le us learn from her to let God' do as he wills', putting nothing before him, seeking only His will often so mysterious but which infallibly comes about for all those who are strong in the faith, and refuse him nothing offering him 'carte blanche'. On a white sheet, purified with the sacrament of reconciliation and the Eucharist, a life of prayer and charity, the Lord can write whatever he wants. Let us always say to Jesus with complete honesty: “ Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Sal 138, 23). Agenzia Fides 1/7/2009; righe 68, parole 1,074)
