José Ricardo Bezerra e Felipe Bezerra
We have reached the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and this Sunday's Gospel, told by St Matthew (Mt 14:22-33), is the continuation of the multiplication of the loaves that we meditated on last Sunday. After feeding the crowd, Jesus sends the disciples ahead in the boat and goes up the mountain to pray alone. In the early hours he comes to meet them, walking on the storm-tossed sea, and Peter asks to go to him as well.
As always, we have chosen five points for your meditation and prayer, which we share on the podcast: https://youtu.be/af_JNw930WY (with subtitles in your language). Take your Bible, open it to Matthew 14:22-33, read the passage calmly, and come back to pray with us.
1. Jesus went up the mountain to pray alone
The first point comes right at the beginning. After dismissing the crowds, Jesus went up the mountain to pray alone (Mt 14:23). He could have prayed with the disciples, as he will do at the Transfiguration or as he does when they ask him: "Lord, teach us to pray…" (Lk 11:1). But here he wants silence and solitude before the Father.
There is a strong lesson here: if even Jesus, who is God, needed to pray, who are we to think we can do without prayer? Many times the Gospel shows Jesus withdrawing to pray (cf. Mk 1:35; Lk 5:16). And his life was intense, almost twenty-four hours straight between preaching, the miracle of the multiplication, and now prayer on the mountain.
What Jesus was praying, the text does not say, and so we too can pray within this silence. We may suppose at least three intentions. First, intercession for John the Baptist, who had just been killed, entrusting to the Father the passover of his cousin. Second, praise and thanksgiving to the Father, that praise which perhaps the satisfied crowd did not offer. Third, intercession for the disciples, especially for Peter, as he himself will say at the Last Supper: "But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail" (Lk 22:32). Jesus was also praying for us, because everything that is in the Gospels reaches us. In the same way, we too can intercede for the dead, for those who suffer, and for those who do not pray, like that beautiful aspiration of Fatima: "My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You. I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You."
2. Jesus came walking on the sea
In the early hours, Jesus came to meet the disciples walking on the sea (cf. Mt 14:25). He could have gone around by the coast and arrived even faster, but he chooses to cross the waters. The Fathers of the Church and scholars point out at least three reasons for this gesture.
The first is to come to the aid of the disciples. They did not set out in the midst of the storm; they left calmly, and the contrary wind came later, in the middle of the crossing. Storms are the trials that take us by surprise, and Jesus comes precisely when the danger is real. The second reason is to reveal his divine identity. Only God walks upon the waters, as the book of Job says: he alone treads on the waves of the sea (cf. Job 9:8). In the biblical tradition the sea is an image of chaos, and it is God who sets its limits: thus far shall you come, and no farther (cf. Job 38:8-11). Already at the beginning, the Spirit of God was moving over the waters (cf. Gen 1:2). By walking serenely over the raging sea, without running and without leaping, Jesus shows that he is the Lord, sovereign over the chaos. The third reason is to train the faith of the disciples, and in a special way that of Peter, as we will see in the last point.
The boat is the Church, but it is also our heart. All of us pass through storms, sorrows and trials, and the Lord comes to meet us in prayer. With each prayer he reveals himself anew and says to us what he will say to the disciples: "Take heart, it is I; have no fear."
3. It is a ghost, and they cried out in fear
When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said: "It is a ghost." And they cried out in fear (Mt 14:26). It is worth remembering that among them there were experienced fishermen; if those people of the sea were so afraid, the storm must have been truly frightening.
But the point here is another: Jesus is not a ghost. He is not a lost soul, not a disembodied spirit, not an apparition. He is a concrete person, of flesh and bone. After the resurrection he himself will reassure the disciples, who also took him for a spirit: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have." (Lk 24:39). It is the glorified and risen body that St Paul speaks of, distinct from the natural body (cf. 1 Cor 15:42-44). And St John gives his testimony: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life." (1 Jn 1:1).
The first heresies claimed that Jesus was only appearance, pure spirit without a true body. Faith answers that he is a real person, alive not only two thousand years ago but alive today, right now. That is why we need not be afraid of apparitions: the more we pray, the closer we draw to the one who is the Lord of life.
4. Take heart, it is I; have no fear
Jesus, however, at once said to them: "Take heart, it is I; have no fear!" (Mt 14:27). It is worth noting that the opposite of fear, in the Bible, is not courage; it is love. It is St John who writes: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." (1 Jn 4:18). Whoever loves and knows himself loved by God is not frightened before trials, because he knows in whom he has placed his trust, as St Paul says: I know whom I have believed (cf. 2 Tim 1:12).
The very expression "It is I" carries the echo of the divine Name revealed to Moses: I am who I am (cf. Ex 3:14). It is as if Jesus were saying: in my person is the "do not be afraid." This does not cancel the holy Fear of God, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit and a reverence of love, not the dread of a slave.
It is love that gives courage. We see this even in human stories, in the great romances of chivalry, in which someone faces everything for love. So it was with St Ignatius of Loyola and with St Teresa of Ávila: both enjoyed these stories in their youth and ended up discovering a much greater love. St John of the Cross, in the Dark Night, speaks of the garments with which the Lord clothes us so as to ascend to him: the white garment of faith, the green of hope and the red of charity, the three theological virtues that give us strength to cross the nights of life.
5. O man of little faith, why did you doubt
Peter said: "Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water. And Jesus said: Come! So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water; but when he felt the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out: Lord, save me!" (Mt 14:28-30). Jesus stretches out his hand, takes hold of him and asks: "O man of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Mt 14:31).
Why did Peter sink? Because he took his eyes off Jesus and fixed them on the wind and the waves, on his own senses. And here there is a detail that usually goes unnoticed: Peter was a fisherman, he knew how to swim and he was a few steps from the boat. He was in no danger of drowning. His "Lord, save me!" goes far beyond a request for physical rescue. Peter realizes that the problem was not the wind, it was having turned his gaze away, and so he does not try to save himself by his own strength nor swim back to the boat. He turns his gaze back to Jesus and hands himself over entirely into his hands.
Jesus does not rebuke Peter for having no faith, but for having little faith. And how does one grow in faith? First, through prayer, because one does not love whom one does not know. Then, through charity, for faith grows when love shows itself in works. And through the very acts of faith, through the exercises in which we are tested. God allowed Peter to begin to walk and to sink so that he might learn to trust for real. The trials that the Lord permits are occasions for spiritual growth, and we must neither lose heart nor waste them.
Sustained by the prayer of Jesus, that his faith might not fail (cf. Lk 22:32), Peter, the one who here is weak, will grow until he confirms the brethren in the faith and gives his own life in the persecution of Nero. As they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and the disciples bowed down before Jesus, saying: "Truly you are the Son of God!" (Mt 14:33).
This is the final invitation of today's Gospel: in our storms, not to take our eyes off Jesus and to cry out with Peter, Lord, save me. If any word has already touched your heart along these points, stay with it and pray with it, without hurrying to go through all five. It is there that God wants to speak to you today.
Until next week!
Shalom!
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Podcast video: https://youtu.be/af_JNw930WY with subtitles you select in your own language.
Steps of the Lectio Divina
Lectio Divina is the prayerful reading of the Word of God. Set aside a time of silence, call upon the Holy Spirit and go calmly through these steps, praying yourself with this Gospel.
1. Reading (Lectio). What does the text say?
Read the passage attentively, noticing what Jesus does, what he says and how Peter reacts.
The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to St Matthew (Mt 14:22-33)
"After the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side of the sea, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed them, Jesus went up the mountain to pray alone. When evening came, he was there alone. But the boat, already far from the land, was being beaten by the waves, for the wind was against it. At about three o'clock in the morning, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said: 'It is a ghost.' And they cried out in fear. But Jesus at once said to them: 'Take heart, it is I; have no fear!' Then Peter said to him: 'Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.' And Jesus answered: 'Come!' So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water, toward Jesus. But when he felt the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out: 'Lord, save me!' Jesus at once stretched out his hand, took hold of Peter, and said to him: 'O man of little faith, why did you doubt?' And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Those who were in the boat bowed down before him, saying: 'Truly you are the Son of God!'"
2. Meditation (Meditatio). What does the text say to me?
Let a word touch your heart. In what storm am I now? Where have I taken my eyes off Jesus? What fear do I need to hand over to his love?
3. Prayer (Oratio). What do I say to God from the text?
Answer the Lord in your own words: present your storms and trials, ask for the faith of Peter and cry out with confidence, Lord, save me.
4. Contemplation (Contemplatio). What new vision does God give me?
Remain in silence before Jesus who walks serenely on the sea, letting yourself be looked upon by him and resting in the certainty that he is the Lord, sovereign over all chaos.
5. Action (Actio). To what is the Lord calling me today?
Choose one concrete gesture: an act of trust in the midst of a difficulty, a fixed time of prayer alone as Jesus did, or a word of courage to someone sinking beside you.
