Gospel: Matthew 14:22-36
22 Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the
other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the
crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he
was there alone, 24 but the boat by this time was many furlongs distant from
the land, beaten by the waves; for the wind was against them. 25 And in the
fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. 26 But when the
disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is
a ghost!" And they cried out for fear. 27 But immediately he spoke to
them, saying, "Take heart, it is I; have no fear." 28 And Peter
answered him, "Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water."
29 He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the
water and came to Jesus; 30 but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and
beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me." 31 Jesus immediately
reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "O man of little
faith, why did you doubt?" 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind
ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the
Son of God." 34 And when they had crossed over, they came to land at
Gennesaret. 35 And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent round
to all that region and brought to him all that were sick, 36 and besought him
that they might only touch the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it
were made well.
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Reflection:
What is faith in Jesus? It’s when you look at Jesus and you disregard
anything that will detach your attention from Jesus. When Peter saw Jesus
walking on water he told Jesus to allow him to go to Him and Jesus obliged
Peter’s request (Matthew 14:29-30).
However, when Peter was walking towards Jesus he felt the strong wind and
saw the waves coming his way. And thereupon he began to sink but Jesus was
there to save him. We speak here not only of Peter’s weak faith in Jesus we
also speak of our own faith in Jesus, how strong is our faith in Jesus?
Can we still have faith even if we go through severe testing? For
example, we get sick of covid-19. Would this not disturb our faith in the Lord? Would we not question the Lord, why?
Life is really a mystery we may be here today but there’s no assurance
that we would still be breathing the next day. Even our faith in Jesus in
itself is a mystery because we hold on to something that we don’t see yet we
still hold on tightly to this something that we don’t see. For the reason that
we have faith. And this faith that we have will pull us through no matter how
severe the trials that may come to us.
Peter obviously has faith otherwise he wouldn’t have told Jesus to let
him go to HIM. But Peter allowed also the wind and the waves to momentarily
diminish his faith in Jesus. As we go on with our lives we will surely face our
own episodes of test of faith in Jesus.
Let us remain faithful and not lose heart no matter how severe our
own test of faith. Because the Lord is always there to carry us thru this test
of faith. - Marino J. Dasmarinas
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