Turn to Christ, and follow

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time—A

In Matthew, Mark, and John, Jesus’s miracles of feeding the multitude and walking on water are connected because both concern the disciple’s need to trust completely in him. In the first, we are called to come to the Lord in our poverty of faith for we are powerless to save ourselves. In the second, when the little faith we have seems inadequate against the darkness, we are urged, “Do not be afraid.”

The first miracle comforts. Who doesn’t want to be reassured that our hungers will be fed by God? The second is harder to accept, especially in Matthew’s version. It’s the only one to include Peter’s leap. He had faith, little though it was, and asked Jesus to command him to test that faith, not in a calm, sunny pool but amid turbulent waves that were about to crush him and his friends in their tiny boat.

Isn’t the boat of Peter in the midst of a storm right now? Even as tumultuous seas of a post-Christian, perhaps post-religious, era threaten us, we risk sinking our own ship and losing what little faith we still have by our internal divisions and vilification of one another. Together, we must turn to Christ, ask him to command us to follow, offer him our poverty and doubt, and beg him, “Lord, save us.”

This post was first published in “GIA Quarterly: A Liturgical Music Journal.”

Image credit: Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash.