19th Sunday - Fr. Leo

On one of my walks, I saw a young child on a bike with training wheels.  Must have been her first time.  She was very wobbly and came near to hitting the pavement, had her dad not been there to catch her numerous times.  I thought of that when I read today’s gospel.  The disciples are being taught how to ride the ups and downs of faith.  At once they are at peace in God’s presence, then moments later scared to death of a storm and a strange vision they see on the water.

Like the little girl, Jesus catches Peter as fear starts to win over his faith.  To have faith, to live in peace in all things, the good and the bad, the scary and the peaceful, takes time.  The challenges of life can teach us much.  Sometimes I think it’s like learning to walk.  We fall many times and no one is there to catch us, but we get up and try again until we are walking and never remember all the falls it took to gain the strength and balance needed to walk.  And soon we find ourselves running.

The one thing required of us is to want to learn to ride, to want full faith in God. With that deep desire to live in the Spirit, God will help us in our need and never abandon us in our struggles.  We are well then to pray for the gift of deep faith, and to seek God’s voice which not only comes in dramatic ways, but also, as we learn from Elijah in our first reading, in the quiet whispers of time spent waiting on God.