Gospel Reflection For The 13th day of April in the year of Our Lord, 2024
Gospel
John 6:16-21
16 And when evening was come, his disciples went down to the sea. 17 And when they had gone up into a ship, they went over the sea to Capharnaum; and it was now dark, and Jesus was not come unto them. 18 And the sea arose, by reason of a great wind that blew. 19 When they had rowed therefore about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking upon the sea, and drawing nigh to the ship, and they were afraid. 20 But he saith to them: It is I; be not afraid.
21 They were willing therefore to take him into the ship; and presently the ship was at the land to which they were going.
In today’s Gospel, we once again read of Jesus helping the disciples at sea during a storm. It is September as I am writing this, and about two weeks ago a hurricane blew through here that was not very powerful. Another one is heading our way and will arrive in two days if it does not turn north – it looks stronger. Such is life in the American southeast. These days, I write a lot for Preppers, people who try to prepare for all sorts of disasters and circumstance. But, I don’t consider myself to really be a Prepper. I simply learned preparedness as a part of life growing up. Whether it was a hurricane in the coastal swamps of NC where my mother’s family was from or a blizzard in the mountains where I was born, I learned not to rely on electricity or government services. We stored food, fuel and water and were prepared to just tuck in and wait it out. Several times we were without power and water for weeks at a time because we lived in very rural areas. During floods or when there are icy roads and lots of downed trees that have knocked out power lines, the government and power companies focus on helping the largest population centers first. We knew that we would just have to wait it out.
I don’t understand people who do not prepare for such things. But, whenever there is a bad storm, people rush to the stores or shelters, or they evacuate too late, and get into all sorts of dangerous situations. I just tuck in and “ride it out” as they say. Perhaps that isn’t always the wisest course of action, but it has served me well so far. The biggest mistake people make is to panic. Not panicking requires two aspects in times of disaster, experience and faith. Experience helps us prepare. Faith gives us courage.
As I have mentioned before, among my worst nightmare would be to be at sea in a little row boat during a storm! We have to wonder why such experienced sailors and fishermen as Saint Peter and his companions keep finding themselves in such predicaments. Granted, they did not have modern weather forecasting technology, but ancient man was very sophisticated in the ways he learned to predict the weather through the observation of nature. Our kidneys are actually fairly accurate barometers as the regulate our bodily fluids. An observant person can feel a storm coming and smell the rain before it arrives.
I think there was a purpose to these storms on the sea. When such storms arose, the Apostles were truly helpless. All they could do was to pray and try to keep their boat from being swamped or capsized. The fear must have been intense as no amount of experience could save them from the violent power of nature. Then, Jesus appears and all is calm. I believe these storms were how our Lord prepared His disciples and encouraged them to trust in Him for salvation through all the storms of life. The storms taught them to have faith in Jesus. That experience was a great lesson.
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Gospel passages are taken from the Douay Rheims Bible.