God Sleeping in Our Storms

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“They woke him up and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Do you ever feel that way, like God seems to be sleeping, not really paying attention to how urgent your needs are? There’s a psalm, the Psalms are given to us as a model of prayer. I like this psalm a lot. It says, “rouse yourself. Why do you sleep? O Lord, awake.” So trying to wake the Lord up. So we have an official prayer in Sacred Scripture, which is just trying to wake the Lord up. “Do not cast us off forever. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression? Rise up, come to our help. Deliver us for the sake of your merciful love.” So that’s Psalm 44 so it’s not beating around the bush, right? It’s a desperate situation, and it’s telling God exactly what he needs to do, like wake up and help us out, get working. So why was Jesus sleeping in the boat? Obviously. I mean, he had a very busy ministry, so he could be tired. But to be sleeping in the midst of a great raging storm in a little boat is not an easy thing to do. So why was he sleeping? So that’s what we’re going to try to come back to that question. So St Augustine, speaking of this passage, says, “The episode at sea signifies the drama of Christian life. All of God’s children embark with Christ on a life that is full of dangerous storms.” So that’s good to know, because we might think, well, if I’m going to follow God, then things are going to be a lot calmer, right? Because He’s God, and so I’m trying to do what’s right, so things should be nice and calm. St Augustine says, “all of God’s children embark with Christ on a life that is full,” he doesn’t say there might be dangerous storms, he says, “is full of dangerous storms.” He says, “especially attacks from evil spirits.” So those are storms that we can’t always see, but attacks from evil spirits. And then he says, “and temptations of the flesh,” which we know, those are always assailing us. So, these storms, he says that we’re facing. And then St John Chrysostom says, “the wave tossed boat signifies the struggles of Christian life, endangered by the wind and fierce waves. God’s people are awakened by spiritual assaults.” So he’s talking about God’s people being awakened, that the storms can serve to awaken us, the spiritual souls can wake us up, and he says, “and make us aware of our helplessness.” Make us aware of our helplessness. That’s one of the things that the storms can do is make us aware of our helplessness. So I want to read to you a passage. This is from the book of the mystic Maria Valtorta. And Mother Teresa, those of you who come regularly know that we’ve often spoken of this book. It’s called “The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me.” Maria Valtorta, “The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me.” Mother Teresa, her spiritual director said, when she traveled, she only kept three books with her- her Bible, her Liturgy of the Hours, and this book, the Maria Valtorta’s book. You know, a lot of people are talking about “The Chosen.” You know that TV show “The Chosen,” a lot of you are familiar with that. I’ve just seen little clips of it and like it’s, you know, the most recent. And a whole series of people who, now in movies or TV shows or books, have tried to imagine, you know, what the gospel was like. And those can be helpful. They can give us new insights into parts of the gospel, but the danger is that they can also be a very human perspective on the gospel. And to me, this book of Maria Valtorta’s, there’s nothing that compares to it, as giving you insights into the gospel, whether you read it as a revelation, which is what I think it is, or whether you read it simply as her own imagination. And for me, it’s actually much harder to explain it as her own writings. I mean, even for instance, archeologists have discovered some – since she wrote it.  She was writing this bedridden, in Italy during the war. It was like 1943, 1944 and she didn’t have access to books, hardly any books. And archeologists have recently discovered sites, for instance, archeological sites which are mentioned in her writings, but which they didn’t even know about. So, I mean, that’s just one little sign of how it’s very hard to explain this as simply a human product. But anyway, so I want to give you, read to you a passage from it, which is, first of all, a description of the passage we heard in the Gospel, and then an expert, then a teaching about that. So it starts. “This is what I saw, a sailing boat, not excessively large nor very small.” And while I’m reading this, if you want to close your eyes, if that helps you to focus, feel free. You can even fall asleep if you want to. “A sailing boat, not excessively large nor very small. A fishing boat on which five or six people can move comfortably is plowing the water of the beautiful, deep Lake of Gennesaret. Jesus is sleeping in the stern. He is dressed in white as usual. He is resting His head on His left arm and under His arm and head He has placed His blue gray mantle, which has been folded many times. He is sitting, not lying in the bottom of the boat, and His head is resting on the board that is at the very end of the stern. He is sleeping peacefully. He is tired. He is Placid. Peter is at the rudder. Andrew is busy with the sails. John and two more people are sorting out the ropes and nets at the bottom of the boat, as if they were preparing for a catch during the night. I would say that the day is drawing to its end because the sun is already setting in the west. The sky is clouding over, and the sun is hiding behind huge storm clouds, which have suddenly appeared from behind the top of a hill. The wind blows them fast towards the lake. The wind, for the time being, is high up, and the lake is still quiet. It is only becoming darker, and its surface is no longer perfectly smooth. There are no waves as yet, but the water is beginning to ruffle. Peter and Andrew watch the sky and the lake and are preparing to draw close to the shore, but the wind suddenly rages over the lake. Then in a few minutes, surges foaming, the swelling waves clash against one another. They strike the little boat, lifting it up, lowering it down, tossing it in all directions, thus preventing all maneuvers of the rudder as the wind prevents maneuvering the sail which has to be lowered. Jesus is sleeping. Neither the steps and excited voices of the disciples nor the howling wind, nor the waves pounding on the sides of the boat in its brow awake Him.” So it’s mysterious how He can still be sleeping. “His hair is blowing in the wind, and drops of water reach Him, but He is sleeping. John runs from the stern, from stern to stern, and covers Him with his mantle. The storm rages more and more furiously. The lake is as black as if ink had been poured into it and is streaked by the foams of the waves. The boat lets in water and is driven farther and farther to the open sea by the wind. The disciples are perspiring in their efforts to maneuver the boat and bailing out the water which the waves pour in. But to no avail. They are paddling in the water that reaches up to their knees, and the boat is becoming heavier and heavier. Peter loses his calm and patience. He hands the rudder over to his brother. Staggers towards Jesus and shakes Him vigorously. Jesus wakes up and raises His head. Save us, Master, we’re going down, Peter shouts to Him. He must shout to make himself heard. Jesus stares at His disciples, looks at the others and then at the lake. ‘Do you believe that I can save you?’ Quick master shouts, Peter, while a real mountain of water moves fast from the center of the lake towards the poor little boat. It is so high and dreadful that it looks like a waterspout. The disciples who see it coming kneel down and hang on to whatever they can, certain that it is the end.” So Peter didn’t even bother to respond to the question. Just quick, Master. “Jesus gets up. He stands on the stern board, a white figure against the livid storm. He stretches His arms out towards the billows and says to the wind, ‘stop and be quiet. And to the water, calm down. I want it.’ And the billow dissolves into foam, which falls harmlessly with the last roar, which fades into a whisper, while the wind dies down, changing into a whistle and then a sigh, and the sky becomes clear, once again over the appeased lake, while hope and faith fill the hearts of the disciples. I cannot describe Jesus’ majesty. One must see it to understand it.” And so that’s her account of the miracle. And then this is the reflection. “Why was I sleeping?” So that’s the question we asked. “Why he says, was I sleeping? Did I perhaps not know that there was going to be a storm? Yes, I knew. Only I knew. Why was I sleeping then? The apostles were men. They were full of goodwill, but still very much men. Man thinks that he is always capable of everything. When he is really capable of doing something, he is full of haughtiness and attachment to his ability. Peter, Andrew, James John, were good fishermen, and consequently they thought they were unexcelled in handling a boat. As far as they were concerned, I was a great rabbi, but a mere nothing as a sailor. Thus they thought I was unable to help them. And when on the boat to cross the sea of Galilee, they begged me to sit down because I was not capable of doing anything else. Also, their love for Me was behind their attitude, as they did not want Me to do any material work. But their attachment to their own ability was greater than their love. I do not impose Myself, except in exceptional cases. I generally leave you free and wait. On that day, tired as I was, and being requested to rest, that is to let them act, clever as they were, I went to sleep. My sleep also included the ascertainment of how man is man and wants to do things by himself, without feeling that God asked but to help him. I saw in those spiritually deaf men and those spiritually blind men, all the spiritually deaf and blind people, who throughout centuries, would ruin themselves because they wanted to do it by themselves. Although I was bent over their needs, waiting to be asked to help them. When Peter shouted, save us, my bitterness dropped like a stone. I am not man. I am the God man. I do not behave as you do. When someone rejects your advice or your help, and then you see him in trouble, even if you are not so bad as to rejoice in it, you are uncharitable enough to look at him disdainfully and indifferently without being moved by his shouts for help. Your attitude means when I wanted to help you, you did not want me. Well, help yourself now.” Of course, we’re not like that, right? We wouldn’t do that. “But I am Jesus. I am the Savior, and I save. I always save, as soon as I am asked to. But you might object, in that case, why do you allow single or collective storms to break out?” So that’s another big question. Why do you allow all these storms, all these trials? “If by my power, I should destroy evil, you would consider yourselves the authors of good, which in actual fact is a gift of mine, and you would not remember Me any longer. You would never remember Me. My poor children, you are in need of sorrow to remember that you have a father. As the prodigal son remembered, he had a father when he was hungry. Misfortunes convince you of your nothingness, of your ignorance.” So that’s important. “Misfortunes convince you of your nothingness, of your ignorance, which is the cause of so many errors, of your wickedness, the cause of so much mourning and grief, of your faults, the cause of the punishments which you inflict upon yourselves. Misfortunes also remind you of your need for Me, of My power and of My goodness. That is what today’s gospel teaches you my poor children. Call Me. Jesus does not sleep, except when He is in anguish, because He sees that He is not loved by you. Call Me and I will come. Call Me and I will come.” So this is an opportunity to reflect on, if we do that, if we exclude Jesus from areas that we think we don’t need your help. And not just in our personal lives, but do we do that as a society? Is our country doing that now? Is our country excluding God and trying to pretend that we humans can solve all our problems? And is there a danger even in the Church of that? You know, Peter’s boat is often seen as an image of the Church. It’s interesting that Bishop Strickland just a couple of weeks ago, I mean, he’s been issuing what seemed like very prophetic, some very prophetic letters to the Church. And recently, a couple weeks ago, he was talking about preparing for a great storm, a great storm, and this is the gospel, speaking of this terrible storm. And I think that this is an attitude even in the Church. And I think the recent document a couple weeks ago that came out about norm, the Vatican document about norms for judging alleged supernatural phenomena, I think that’s a good example of the problem of a Church which is not often, not very open to God’s own action and God’s own words. It’s trying to do everything, solve everything by our human abilities, and as if we can just have a synod or a bunch of synods, and we get together and share our opinions, and we’re going to fix things by doing that. And it’s not by our human ideas and opinions and efforts. It’s only by listening and obeying God that we will, by putting our faith in Him. And so that last passage, and in what I read to you was “call Me and I will come.” And I think that’s what our Lord has been saying in a strong way, in these messages, inviting us, telling us that we can’t fix, we can’t save ourselves from the great storm that has already begun. But we can call Him and He will come. He will come, He will act. And as we see in the Gospel, so clearly, what He needs from us is faith, faith so that God can act. And we see that that’s what Jesus was waiting until they made a desperate act of faith. He could have calmed that storm whenever He wanted, but He didn’t do it until they made an act of faith. And they didn’t make that act of faith until things got really bad. And sometimes that’s what we need, for things to get really bad before we say, Uh oh, I don’t think we’re going to be able to fix this. And so we turn to God. And so that’s what He’s inviting us to. And that’s what this little, what He’s called this mission to is faith. Turning to Him, realizing; you know, our little mission is so small, so limited, that there’s not much we can do by ourselves, but what He’s asking us to do is to put our faith in Him and let Him act. And what we’re seeing it, I’ll share with you what one example we had, um. Well, this was last week. There was a guy, a young man, who came down from Ohio, and he spent a couple days here and he said that at one point, I think it was on Saturday, he went up and spent some time up on Tepeyac and then spent some time here in the chapel, or maybe it’s Friday, it was empty. And he said he heard the Lord saying to him, look around now and remember this moment, because you will never again see it like this. That is next time you come it’ll not be quiet and empty, it’ll be filled. And so there’s just, I mean, that’s very impressive to us. There’s so many people coming and sharing with us their experiences. Yesterday, we had young woman who came from South Korea, South Korea. She said she’d been, over the years, she’d wanted to visit Marian shrines throughout the world, and she just learned about this, and she wanted to come, come to the mission. So for us, it’s just very impressive seeing already, God’s action drawing these people here. So this is an invitation in the storms that we are living, personally and as a Church, as our country, to call upon the Lord in the many terrible storms that we’re living. And our Mass is an opportunity to do this right now, in this Mass, it’s an opportunity to come together, to call on the Lord, to call on His help, to ask Him to come and save us. So we ask our Blessed Mother to give us this faith in Jesus. Jesus, we trust in You. Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Mark 4:35-41
Psalms 44