Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, Lord.
After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.
After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
When it was evening, he he was there alone.
Meanwhile, the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it.
During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea.
When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified.
It is a ghost, they said, and they cried out in fear.
At once Jesus spoke to them.
Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.
Peter said to him in reply, lord, it is good that you are here. Command me to come to you on the water.
He said, come.
Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.
But when he saw how strong the wind was, he became frightened and beginning to sink, he cried out, lord, save me.
Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hands and caught Peter and said to him, o you of little faith, why did you doubt?
After they got into the boat, the wind died down.
Those who were in the boat did Imammaj, saying, truly, you are the son of God. The gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
There was an elderly widower who, after spending many years taking care of his wife, who faced a lot of illness.
He spent virtually all his retirement savings, and he struggled to put food on the table to keep the lights on.
He was also very devout, so he prayed daily. And part of his prayer was asking God to help him win the lottery, promising God that if he won, he would only keep enough money to keep food on his table and to keep his house up.
And he prayed this month upon month, week upon week.
And he finally got to a point where he was a little frustrated.
He saw his wife suffer and die.
He saw how much he was struggling.
And he thought to himself, why in the world won't God help me? I've tried to be a good person.
Well, the clouds parted and a voice came from heaven. Buy a ticket.
Now, isn't that really how our lives can tend to be?
We pray, we look for God's help, but we can also look for the spectacular, the big things, more than the quiet things.
I'm not sure what your experience of God in your life is but mine has always been much more like Elijah experienced.
Not in the wind, not in the flames, not in the earthquake do I experience God but in the very quiet whispers the moments where I recognize I'm not alone the moments where I recognize I'm loved rather than Peter's experience that got shaky for him going out and walking on the water the spectacular it's always been in the quiet and I think we would all be better off if we learned to look for God in those quiet moments because rarely do we see profound and big miracles happen.
But I would argue virtually daily we can have an experience of God in our presence making us just a little bit stronger than we were the day before making us just a little bit more contented than we were the day before reminding us to the very depth of who we are, that we are never alone and that we're always loved.
