The Storm and Our Faith
- POPE BENEDICT XVI
The sea symbolizes this life and the instability of the visible world; the storm points to every kind of trial or difficulty that oppresses human beings.
The boat, instead, represents the Church, built by Christ and steered by the Apostles.
Jesus wanted to teach the disciples to bear life's adversities courageously, trusting in God, in the One who revealed himself to the Prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb in a still small voice [the whispering of a gentle breeze] Kgs 1912)....
Saint Augustine, imagining that he was addressing the Apostle, commented: "The Lord leaned down and took you by the hand. With your strength alone you cannot rise. Hold tight to the hand of the One who reaches down to you," and he did not say this to Peter alone but also to us.
Peter walks on the water, not by his own effort but rather through divine grace, in which he believes. And when he was smitten by doubt, when he no longer fixed his gaze on Jesus but was frightened by the gale, when he failed to put full trust in the Teacher's words, it means that he was interiorly distancing himself from the Teacher and so risked sinking in the sea of life.
So it is also for us: if we look only at ourselves we become dependent on the winds and can no longer pass through storms on the waters of life. The great thinker Romano Guardini wrote that the Lord "is always close, being at the root of our being. Yet we must experience our relationship with God between the poles of distance and closeness. By closeness we are strengthened, by distance we are put to the test."
Dear friends...the troubled faith of the Apostle Peter enables us to understand that even before we seek the Lord or invoke him, it is he himself who comes to meet us, who lowers heaven to stretch out his hand to us and raise us to his heights; all he expects of us is that we trust totally in him, that we really take hold of his hand.
Let us call on the Virgin Mary, model of total entrustment to God, so that amidst the plethora of anxieties, problems, and difficulties which chum up the sea of our life, our hearts may resonate with the reassuring words of Jesus who also says to us, Take heart, it is I; have no fear!; and may our faith in him grow.
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Acknowledgement
Pope Benedict XVI. "The Storm and Our Faith." from Angelus Castle Gandolfo (August 7, 2011).
Reprinted with permission of Liberia Editrice Vaticana.
The Author
Pope Benedict XVI is the author of Jesus of Nazareth, Vol II, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol I, Caritas in Veritate: Charity in Truth, Saved in Hope: Spe Salvi, God Is Love: Deus Caritas Est,The End of Time?: The Provocation of Talking about God, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, Salt of the Earth: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church at the End of the Millennium, God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, The Spirit of the Liturgy, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Introduction to Christianity, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, Behold the Pierced One, and God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life.
