St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

To fully grasp the awesome power Christ displays in this Gospel scene, we need to activate our imagination. Few situations leave men so helpless and despairing as storms at sea. The Sea of Galilee, where the disciples were sailing in this case, is still known for the violence of its squalls, which arise and subside rapidly and unpredictably due to its peculiar geographical situation. It is located at the bottom of a long funnel created by rows of mountains to the north. Air traveling through the narrowing valley bursts onto the sea with the explosive force of a flash flood squeezed through a garden hose. In the midst of these gales, the potencies of nature unleash their full, terrifying violence, and human fragility is nakedly exposed.

This experience of utter helplessness is what today's Psalm tries to express:

    "His command raised up a storm wind

    which tossed its waves on high.

    They mounted up to heaven; they sank to the depths;

    their hearts melted away in their plight.

    They cried to the LORD in their distress;"

St. Mark makes it quite clear that the disciples, many of whom were fishermen by trade and familiar with boats and sea storms, feared for their lives. So we can safely infer that this storm was no minor agitation. That a mere word from the Lord reins in nature's primeval brawn, shocks the helpless fishermen even more than the stormy sea had frightened them just moments before.

They had seen the Lord's miracles; they had heard His wisdom; they had witnessed His power over the human heart. But to see the most unruly powers that flow through the bowels of the universe submit like a well-trained golden retriever - this was a lordship they had not yet even conceived of; this is the lordship of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Our Father in heaven, the one Who created us, loves us, and constantly watches over us, is also all-powerful, omnipotent, and almighty; nothing is difficult for Him. The more we are aware and convinced of this, the better we will be able to weather life's storms and actually utilize them for growth in spiritual maturity, just as Job did, just as the Apostles on the Sea of Galilee did. But how can we grow in this awareness and strengthen this commitment?

Pope Benedict has instructed us in a very effective way to do just that at the start of his pontificate. Both in his encyclical letters and in his weekly catechetical instructions, he constantly turned his attention to the saints. The saints are our older brothers and sisters in the faith, the ones who, with the help of Christ's grace, learned how to believe firmly in God's loving omnipotence, and therefore learned how to turn every storm into an opportunity.

Yet, they weren't born saints; they were born selfish, fearful, broken sinners, just like you and me. If we spend some time getting to know their stories, filling our minds and imaginations with their examples, we too will grow in Christian wisdom. This is why the Church canonizes saints in the first place: to offer us not only intercessors in heaven, but inspiring examples for how to follow Christ here on earth.

Today we should ask ourselves whose examples we tend to pay more attention to, the saints, or the entertaining but less edifying examples concocted by Hollywood, Sport figures and/or the New York Times bestsellers list. 

If it's the latter, let's ask the Lord to help us change it this week to the former.