Homily: Saturday, 4th Week of Easter

The following is a homily I preached a week ago, but simply forgot to post.

Readings: Acts 13:44-52; Ps 98; Jn 14:7-14

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“Believe me," Jesus says.

Back in my Navy days, I sat through many, many briefings, and most were eminently forgettable. But I recall one intelligence briefing vividly. We were aboard an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam conflict, and after the intelligence officer briefed us on enemy missile emplacements, the admiral asked a question about the confidence level of the intelligence. Well, the young intelligence officer mistakenly answered the admiral’s question with a simple, “Believe me, Admiral.” I won’t tell you how the admiral responded. In one sense, though, he was like the apostle Philip in today’s Gospel passage from John.

“Believe me…” Jesus said to Philip, the apostle, and, of course, He says the same to each of us: “Believe me.”

Believe everything I have told you, everything you have witnessed. Believe, not only that the Father has sent me, but also that the Father and I are one.

Indeed, this call to believe, this call to faith, is a recurring theme in John’s Gospel. Toward the end of his Gospel, John makes this clear when he writes:

“But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” [Jn 20:31].

In other words, our faith in Jesus is the foundation; and everything else, including eternal life itself, derives from it. Our faith, therefore, must be a living faith, one that carries God’s love into the world; otherwise, our faith is sterile, like an artifact or trophy displayed on a shelf – interesting but essentially useless.

But Jesus knows that for many of us childlike faith is beyond us, that in our adult sophistication, belief is cast aside, overpowered by the things of this world. Like the Admiral, the apostles needed and looked for proof. And well aware of their still weak faith, Jesus tells Philip and the others:

“Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves” [Jn 14:11].

Yes, even the apostles still doubted, didn’t they? Even the apostles, who’d listened to Him and seen all those miracles, those signs, John calls them – those signs of divinity -- even the apostles needed to be reminded they’d already seen the proof. Jesus then told them something truly remarkable:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father” [Jn 14:12].

Your belief, He told the apostles, will manifest itself to the world, and will do so through your works. In effect, Jesus told them that what He had done as He ministered throughout Galilee, Samaria, and Judea will lead to even greater works. His work on earth was just the beginning of something much greater, and these words of His are aimed far beyond the apostles.

Jesus only occasionally interacted with Gentiles, but in today’s reading from Acts, Paul and Barnabas begin the Church’s active ministry to the Gentiles. The immediate result? Luke tells us:

“All who were destined for eternal life came to believe, and the word of the Lord continued to spread through the whole region” [Acts 13:48-49]. 

Greater works, indeed. It was a ministry that led to the conversion of much of the Roman Empire. And because it was God’s work, not simply that of Paul, Barnabas, and those who followed them, it turned apparent failure into success. It overcame all the human obstacles placed in its path: jealousy, hatred, pride, anger, despair, fear, and disbelief.

Jesus, in His risen Body, the Church, continues this great work today through all who believe, though His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, Church. And that, brothers and sisters, means you and me. We, too, have some greater work to do, work Jesus has placed in our hands.

But what have you and I actually done? Are we willing to turn away from the self and turn to others in dire need, to those who are ill, to the hungry, the despairing, the lost, the forgotten? Are we willing to suffer for proclaiming Jesus’ message of life and love to a world steeped in hatred and immersed in a culture of death?

Yes, God’s work always comes complete with a cross, but a cross that Jesus carries with us. And through the help of the Holy Spirit you and I can also believe the promise of Jesus:

“And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it" [Jn 14:14].

So let’s get to it!

VIDEO - COVID-19 Bible Study Reflection #5: To Be a Disciple

Our pastor has asked me to record videos of several more of my COVID-19 Bible Study reflections, so the other day I took an hour or so to record three reflections:

#5 -- To Be a Disciple
#6 -- Abandonment
#7 -  Love One Another

I have embedded the video of #5 below. Krysten, our parish's wonderful IT guru, has also posted the video on the parish's YouTube site. It can be accessed there, along with the parish's recorded Masses and musical reflections: Bible Study Reflection #5: To Be a Disciple

The others -- #6 and #7 -- will be posted on the next two Mondays.

Just an FYI: This video is almost 19 minutes long, so if you'd rather just read it than listen to and watch it, the text is available here: Bible Study Reflection #5 Text.

God's peace...

COVID-19 Bible Study Reflection #5: To Be a Disciple

Note: The following is the 5th of my COVID-19 Reflections, written on May 1st for our parish Bible Study participants.
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"Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow; but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment." - T. S. Eliot, The Idea of a Christian Society

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As we make our collective and individual way through this pandemic, it’s easy to get distracted and allow immediate needs to eclipse that which is truly important, to allow the ephemeral to obscure that which the poet, T. S. Eliot, called, “the permanent things.”

The other day, for example, as I retrieved my mail at the neighborhood postal station, a woman screamed at one of her neighbors for getting too close to her. As he approached his mailbox, he had passed perhaps three or four feet from her, certainly closer than the recommended six feet. Her screaming seemed to embarrass everyone present, everyone, of course, but her. Interestingly, because masks cover half the face, eyes become more evident. And one thing I noticed was the fear in her eyes. I just turned toward her and said quietly, “Don’t be afraid.” Her eyes widened even more but she said nothing and walked quickly to her golf cart. 

I know nothing about this woman. That’s another problem with face masks: you don’t always recognize others. Is she a Christian, a disciple of Jesus Christ? If so, it seems she has let her fear of this disease overwhelm her faith. I realize I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: fear and faith cannot coexist in the human heart.

This morning, as I drove to our church, I noticed a sign in a yard in Wildwood. It simply read: "Faith over Fear." How good to remind us that only faith drives fear from our hearts.

Jesus, who knows our hearts, told His disciples again and again, “Be not afraid!” In saying this He emphasized what God had been telling His people from the very beginning. I’ve long taken comfort in God’s words to His people found in Isaiah 41:

“Do not fear; I am with you; do not be anxious: I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will uphold you with my victorious right hand… For I am the Lord, your God, who grasp your right hand; it is I who say to you, Do not fear, I will help you” [Is 41:10,13].

Indeed, throughout Sacred Scripture we are told repeatedly not to fear, that God will help us in time of trouble. And yet, so often, weak in our faith, we succumb to fear. So often we are like the father of the boy who suffered from convulsions. Concerned for his son, he approached Jesus for help. When the man’s weak faith was challenged by Jesus, he immediately realized his weakness and uttered this prayerful plea to Our Lord:

“I do believe. Help my unbelief” [Mk 9:24].

To me these seemingly contradictory words perfectly describe the paradox that defines the faith of many, perhaps most, Christians. Yes, we believe, but the doubts remain, don’t they? Hovering in the background, they wait for difficult times, times when faith is tested, and then rush forward trying to overcome our faith with fear. Reading the lives of the saints, we encounter deep faith, but so too do we find doubt and weakness. Even the apostles, after being with the risen Jesus for weeks, were plagued by doubts:

“When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted” [Mt 28:17]

Back in my teen years, my family hosted a young, newly ordained Irish priest for a few months while he participated in a theological symposium at Fordham University. A bright and gregarious young man, fresh out of the seminary in Rome, he overflowed with enthusiasm and confidence. In the evening, at the dinner table, he often shared his thoughts on the sessions he had attended that day. One evening, as he and my father discussed the gift of faith, he waxed eloquently about his personal faith, claiming he never experienced doubt. His last comment: “God has blessed me with perfect faith.”

At that point, my mother, who had remained silent throughout the entire discussion, simply asked, “How fortunate for you, Father. Have you moved many mountains today?”

In her own quiet way, Mom brought to mind Jesus’ call to humility and His reproach of the disciples for their weak faith:
He said to them,

“Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” [Mt 17:20].

Yes, indeed, it’s hard to be humble when you think you’re perfect. That young man actually went on to become a wonderful parish priest, who I’m sure learned much from the deep and humble faith of many of his parishioners, the faith that can move mountains of fear.

After all, “Be not afraid!” isn’t a suggestion. It was, and remains, a command. But like so many of Jesus’ commands – for example, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” [Mt 5:48] – it seems far beyond our capabilities. And guess what? It is! That’s right, to carry out the work of God, we need God’s help. We need to open ourselves to the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of His grace. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, grace:

“…includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with His work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church” [CCC, 2003].

The good we do, and the good we encounter in the world, is nothing less than God’s grace acting through the lives of His people. Who are His people? Everyone, every single one of us, created in His image and likeness, each created in a single act of divine love. God didn’t create anyone to be disposable, to be forgotten or ignored, most especially by His disciples. This is why He gave us that final command, just before He ascended to the Father: 

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” [Mt 28:19-20].

What, then, is our task as disciples of Jesus Christ? Nothing less than to make disciples of others, all others. This is God’s hope, His will, as St. Paul describes beautifully in his First Letter to Timothy:

“First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our Savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” [1 Tim 2:1-4].

Do you and I pray that God will save everyone? Or do we condemn others either openly or in our hearts? When we pray those words, “Thy will be done or earth as it is in heaven,” do we also accept that He “wills everyone to be saved?”

Brothers and sisters, we are plagued by more than viruses; we are plagued by fear and hatred and selfishness and so much more. Offer “supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgiving” not only for others, but for yourself. Called as we are to help others respond to God’s gift of faith, we can’t give others something we don’t ourselves possess.

As disciples, then, we must first turn to God, not in fear but in faith. The world, of course, encourages, even insists, that we fear. We need only watch the evening news or glance at the headlines forced on us through our internet browsers. Disease, economic collapse, terrorism, climate change, violence, hatred – yes, indeed, we are told there is much to fear. With all of this challenging our faith it becomes an even greater challenge to carry out God’s call to evangelize.

St. Paul, too, faced challenges. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, he addresses two major obstacles to the spreading of the Gospel.

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles...” [1 Cor 1:22-23]

Yes, Paul tells us, our salvation is all about Christ crucified…but a lot of people didn’t, and still don’t, like to hear about that. They demand miraculous signs and human wisdom. As he preached the Gospel during the Church’s earliest days, Paul faced opposition from Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah and pagans who considered these Christians at best fools or at worst traitors.

To the Jews who rejected Christianity, Christ crucified was a major stumbling block, a scandal. That the one God would lower Himself to become a mere human, one of us, and then allow Himself to be crucified, rejected by His chosen ones…well, the very thought was an abomination. How could God ask us to believe such a thing?

To the Greeks, the gentiles and pagans, a crucified God was sheer folly. No God would allow Himself to be executed like a common criminal…a ridiculous idea, the height of foolishness. Jesus certainly didn’t fit the pagan image of the divine.

In effect Paul is telling the disciples in Corinth: Hey, you’ve got your work cut out for you – well, you would, if it were your work; but it’s not. It’s Christ’s work and He has the wisdom and the power to ensure its success.

Too often we think it’s our work, as if we must show God how smart and capable we are. Too many Christians treat their faith as if it’s just another human activity. A few years ago, I actually heard a bishop encourage his pastors to prepare marketing plans for evangelization. Yes, we fill our human minds with so much, as opposed to St. Paul who tells his flock:

“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” [1 Cor 2:2].

In this Paul simply obeyed Jesus:

“When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. For the holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say” [Lk 12:11-12].

Take a moment now and open your Bible to John 2:12-22. Read that wonderful passage describing Jesus’ janitorial work in the Temple. The scene John describes took place in the outer court of the Temple, the Court of the Gentiles.
Now a lot of Christians are uncomfortable with this passage because it conflicts with their image of Jesus…you know, the happy Jesus, or the concerned Jesus, or the group-hug, Kumbaya, Jesus. Yes, we sometimes expend a lot of effort creating a Jesus in our own image and likeness or one we can tolerate. But in doing so we’re actually trying to make Jesus our disciple, aren’t we?

Why did Jesus act as He did? Well, He had good reason to do so. You see, old Caiaphas, the High Priest, and his friends on the Sanhedrin, controlled the Temple and all the business conducted there.

The priests had to inspect all animals being sacrificed, and so it was very convenient to approve only those animals purchased within the Temple walls – animals that were sold at exorbitant prices, as much as 10 or 20 times the going rate.

Every Jew also had to pay a Temple tax, but he could pay it only in shekels, because the Roman coins displayed a graven image, the face of the pagan emperor. Shekels didn’t. But shekels could be obtained only from the Temple money changers, again at exorbitant rates.

Finally, the filth of the animals, the cacophony from all the buying, selling, and money changing made it impossible for well-disposed Gentiles to pray in peace in the only place open to them, the Court of the Gentiles.

You see, they hadn’t just turned God’s House into a marketplace; they had turned it into a den of thieves…and a filthy, noisy one at that. And so, Jesus took the place apart. He did so to cleanse it, to purify it.

Now what does all this have to do with our theme of discipleship? Well, interestingly, the very word, disciple, has its root in the Latin, “dis” meaning apart, and “capere” to take. And that’s just what Jesus did to the Temple: he took it apart. And that’s exactly what Jesus does to us when we turn to Him in response to His call to discipleship: He takes us apart. He must because we’ve cluttered up His other Temple. How did St. Paul put it to the Corinthians?

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” [1 Cor 6:19]

That’s right…these Temples we walk around in belong to God not to us. And if we don’t own our bodies…well then, brothers and sisters, we own nothing! As the theologian would say, we are “contingent beings;” that is, creatures whose past, present and continued existence depend totally and solely on God’s will. True discipleship demands that we accept this truth, that without God we are nothing.

Only then can we respond to Jesus’ call to discipleship.

Only then can we allow God to take us apart, to remove the clutter and grime accumulated in His Temple, to tear us down to our essentials.

Only then can we abandon the old, all that is behind us, and begin anew, re-created by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

And the wonderful thing is: God is happy to do all of this. Jesus doesn’t care how much sin we’re lugging around. He doesn’t care what we’ve done or how long we’ve done it – whether we’re on death row or at death’s door. He doesn’t care that we’ve spent a lifetime dodging Him, running from Him, hiding from Him.

He cares only that we respond to His call – and do so today. And, believe me, you and I have all been called – over and over and over again – for God never stops calling. Our job is the simple part. We need only respond.

Because it’s His work, He handles all the complicated stuff. He’s the one who forgives, and heals, and teaches, and inspires, and challenges, and loves. He wants to do it all and do it all through us. If we do our part, if we respond in love to God’s call, He’ll take care of the rest.

Oh, yes, one more thing. Despite what some folks might tell you, this response of ours isn’t a one-time thing. No, God’s call demands an ongoing, continuous response.

I said it was simple. I didn’t say it was easy. As the vendors and moneychangers in the Temple discovered, when Jesus cleans house, when we allow Him to purify us, to change us, to take us apart and re-create us, it’s not always pretty.
Don’t let pandemics, or fear, or anything else distract you from God’s work, the work you are called to share: to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Homily: 2nd Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 118; 1 Pt 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
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St. Paul wrote that between the Resurrection and the Ascension more than 500 disciples saw the risen Jesus [1 Cor 15:6]. These weren’t ghostly apparitions. He sat with them, talked with them, walked with them, touched them, ate with them, even cooked a meal for them. He came to them in the flesh. His glorified body, not subject to worldly limitations, is still the flesh that grew from Mary, the flesh that died on the cross, the flesh that bears the marks of His passion.

What a compliment to our humanity: the Son of God wanted the flesh He took from us to be His forever. I think sometimes we forget that. We forget that right now, today, the risen Jesus is truly alive, just as we are. Yes, His body is glorified, but it’s still a body of flesh and blood. And just as His flesh rose from the dead and was glorified, filled with God’s life, so shall yours and mine. Jesus is the Good News in the flesh! Our God with skin on!

In today’s Gospel we learn something about Jesus and about Thomas, but also about ourselves. Do you and I ever doubt? Do we ever question what we casually profess every Sunday in our Creed? You know – one God, three Persons, one Lord who came down from heaven, who died, was buried, and rose from the dead?

"My Lord and my God!"

Years ago, I had a friend named Mel. An agnostic, he told me he couldn’t understand how we Christians could believe all that stuff. It made no sense whatsoever. Thomas had set conditions for believing, hadn’t he? And like Thomas, Mel was a proof-seeker. “Show me! Prove it to me! Let me see it…let me touch it!” Jesus met all of Thomas’ conditions and did what was necessary to bring the reluctant apostle to faith. Thomas no longer had to take anyone’s word for it. But, unlike Thomas, Mel could neither see nor hear. He couldn’t put his fingers into the nail marks or his hand into that wound. 

Accepting God’s gift of faith isn’t always easy, is it? I lost track of Mel over the years but heard that he had died. I pray that he, too, was blessed with the gift of faith, even though he could not see. How did Jesus put it?

“Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” [Jn 20:29].

Of course, He was talking to all of them, not just to Thomas. After all, these chosen ones had been huddled together in fear behind locked doors. Just as today many are huddled in fear behind their locked doors. But locked doors present no obstacle to Jesus, who is present wherever and whenever we call upon Him. Jesus came to release the Apostles from their fears, so they could bear witness to all they had seen and heard, so they could spread the Good News throughout the world.

As Christians we believe that God, who created the universe, really cares about us, that God is a God of love, a love so great it’s impossible to fully comprehend it. The Good News of Jesus Christ – His death and resurrection, our redemption and forgiveness, the promise of eternal life – is so good, so remarkable, that sometimes it seems almost too good to be true. And so, the world doubts. Thomas, too, struggled with this, just as my friend Mel did.

Poor Thomas. Because of this one incident, he’ll always be known as doubting Thomas. And yet, he wasn’t alone in his doubts. Indeed, there’s one very telling verse at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel when he describes the risen Jesus’ last moments with the apostles before he ascends to the Father. Matthew tells us that the now-11 apostles went to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. Then we read: 

“When they saw him, they worshipped, but they doubted” [Mt 28:17].

They still doubted, even after weeks with the risen Christ. Yes, I think poor Thomas gets a bum rap.

A few years ago, browsing in a shop in Mount Dora, I noticed a small sign that read: “Jesus loves you, but I’m His favorite.” Maybe this is what Thomas heard in the enthusiasm of the other apostles: “Yes, Thomas, Jesus loves you too, but we’re His favorites.” A bit jealous? Maybe a little fearful? Was he thinking, “If Jesus did come, why did He come when I wasn’t here? What could this mean?”


Just days earlier, when Jesus decided to return to Jerusalem, where so many were plotting against Him, it was Thomas who, full of bravado, had said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” [Jn 11:16].

The reality, of course, was quite different. Thomas, like the others, abandoned Jesus. Was Thomas thinking of this? Whatever his thoughts, it would be another week before he would see the risen Jesus for himself. It must have been a rough week. The others, their spirits rejuvenated by their encounter with Jesus, were probably telling him, “Don’t worry, Thomas. He’ll be back. You’ll see.” 

But when Jesus appears the second time, Thomas moves instantly from doubt to genuine faith. You might say, “So what. He had his proof. didn’t he?” Well, yes, he did, but proof only in the resurrection of Jesus. Thomas didn’t exclaim, “My risen Lord,” when he saw Jesus. No, Thomas’ faith takes him well beyond that as he says:

“My Lord and my God” [Jn 20:28].

Jesus had been called many things -- Lord, master, rabbi, teacher, prophet, Son of Man, Son of God – but only Thomas, Thomas moved by the Holy Spirit, makes this ultimate declaration of faith in Jesus Christ. This is the Spirit’s gift to Thomas and Thomas’ gift to us. John includes this incident, so we too can believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.


Like Thomas we can freely accept or reject this grace to believe, for it’s a grace never forced on us. How does this touch us, we who have not seen and yet believe? You and I haven’t seen the risen Christ, but he is present with us.

Even today, as you watch this Mass from behind your locked doors, Jesus is with you. He’s with you in His Holy Word. And, yes, despite our physical separation, we are gathered together in His Name.

Even His Eucharistic Presence, although you can now experience it only spiritually, is still a very real presence, one that fills the world with His peace.

As Peter reminded the first Christians: In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials. Yes, there are times in all of our lives – fearful, terrifying, lonely times – when we especially feel His absence. When Jesus seems to have brushed the dust of our lives off His feet. Little wonder He calls us blessed. We don’t see, we suffer, and yet we still believe. We can still drop to our knees and utter with Thomas, “My Lord and my God.”

But is our faith, in itself, enough? Jesus tells us our love for others will be a visible sign that He’s among us – that this is how the world will recognize Him. If the world, then, doesn’t recognize Christ, it must be because the world doesn’t see Him in the lives of those who claim to believe in Him.

As another of my heroes, G. K. Chesterton, once famously said, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."

Yes, it would seem we have our work cut out for us. 

Fortunately, it’s a work Jesus shares. And that’s where our hope must always rest, not in ourselves, but in Jesus Christ – in Him who died for us, who rose for us, who lives for us, and who promised to be with us forever.

Because we believe in the Jesus Christ we have never seen, we may, with the help of God’s grace, learn to see Him in those see every day. In the neighbor, alone and so afraid; in the doctor, the nurse, the aide who work long hours caring for the ill and worry about bringing illness home; in the volunteer who carries food to the hungry…and in so many others.

Yes, brothers nad sisters, Jesus is here. And like Thomas, we see Him and we believe.

Homily: 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Readings: 1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a; Ps 85; Rom 9:1-5; Mt 14:22-33
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Almost fifty years ago, it what now seems to be another lifetime, I was a young naval officer, a flight student in Pensacola. Three of us, all happy bachelors, had rented a house – well, it was really a hovel, but it had three bedrooms and cost us only $85 a month, total. You can imagine what it was like.

One hot summer day, since I was scheduled to fly that night, I decided to take an afternoon nap. I was awakened by a near-deafening noise, like nothing I’d heard before. Not only had my little world turned noisy, it had also turned dark. I was sure I’d overslept and thought of all the trouble I’d be in if I missed my flight. But the roaring outside my window pushed those thoughts aside; I ran to the door and walked onto our front steps to see what was causing it.

It took only a second. A tornado, black and ominous, was just a hundred yards away. As it moved along the next street, it overturned cars and trucks, sent huge chunks of debris flying into the air, and sparked electrical fires. I stood on that step, frozen, my eyes locked on that funnel cloud only a block away.

At that moment I realized there was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go. Our little hovel offered no protection. I could not save myself. And so I did the only thing I could do. I just stood there, and asked God to keep me safe, to save me from the storm. In a minute it was gone – and in that sudden silence I thanked the Lord for His mercy. It was then, too, I realized I was soaked to the bone. I’d been standing on the front step and hadn’t even noticed the torrential rain. Fear can do that to you.

I know I experienced God’s voice in the silence that followed. God speaks to each of us, but to hear His voice in the storms and the quiet of our lives, we must listen, just as Elijah listened.

Fleeing Ahab and his wicked queen, Jezebel, and fearing for his life, Elijah, God’s prophet, was led by the Spirit to God’s holy place, Horeb, or Sinai. He entered a cave there, and in the darkness awaited God’s word. But God called him out of the cave and Elijah found himself in the midst of nature’s devastating power: a fierce tornado-like wind, then a destructive earthquake, and finally a fire.

But in none of these did Elijah hear the Lord; and so he waited. And in the silence he heard “a tiny whispering sound,” [1 Kg 19:12] the voice of God speaking to him. God, who controls the entirety of creation in all its majesty, revealed Himself in humility, in peace, in a gentle breeze revealing the whisper of His own heart.

And what did Elijah do? He “hid his face” [1 Kg 19:13] for he knew He was in the presence of God. He hid his face because in Elijah’s time God had not yet become man. The world would have to wait hundreds of years for that. Until then God, in His person, remained hidden.

And yet, Elijah’s encounter offered a foretaste of the Incarnation, the self-humbling of God, who chose to enter the world like a whisper in a stable in Bethlehem

…who, though sinless, allowed Himself to be baptized in the Jordan

…who offered Himself as victim to be tortured, crucified on the Cross by the very ones He created.

Yes, the more God humbles Himself, the more He reveals His love and who He is. And He does so most often in the silence of our lives. My father used to ask, “How much do you learn about the other person when you’re talking?” The answer, of course, is “not much.” This applies as well to our prayer.

Brothers and sisters, God wants to reveal Himself to us, but He doesn’t force it. He simply calls us. He calls us to a relationship through prayer. Prayer is simply a conversation, a dialog with God, in which God speaks and reveals, and we respond. We must listen in silence, listen to God’s Word, and recognize His voice, the “tiny whispering sound” that will penetrate our very souls, if only we let it.

We see this as well with Peter, who like Elijah also had a stormy encounter with God. Jesus had been on the mountain in communion with the Father; then in the darkness He came down to the sea, and walked upon it.

On that same stormy sea the apostles, tossed about in their boat, were afraid. When they saw Jesus waking toward them in the midst of the storm and gloom, their fear was magnified. It must be an apparition, a ghost. They saw, but did not recognize Jesus. Only when He spoke, only when they heard His voice, His Word, did recognition come.

And what did He say? “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” [Mt 14:27] The Greek phase, ego eimi, can be translated as “It is I”, but in the original Greek it means “I am.” And these two words take us back to God’s revelation of His name to Moses at the burning bush: “Tell the Israelites I AM has sent me to you.” [Ex 3:14] Jesus, then, revealed His divinity through His domination of creation by walking on the stormy sea, and through His Word: “I AM.”

But as usual the apostles doubted. Yes, their faith, like ours, was often weak. It’s a weakness that reaches its peak on Calvary when they hid, unwilling to recognize the Lord in that place of fear. Is it any wonder that, again and again, Jesus told them, as He tells us, “Be not afraid”?

On the water, Jesus spoke as He moved toward them, closing the gap, the huge gap that had always separated God from man. No longer must we hide our faces. No longer must we fear His presence for He calls each one of us into friendship, into a sacred, personal relationship. But that day, on the water, this was not yet evident.

What does Peter do? In his boldness, he challenged the Lord. How often you and I are like that, weak in faith we challenge God, looking for some quid pro quo: “Okay, God, prove yourself to me. Do this, Do that.” In effect Peter said, “If it’s really you, let me walk on the water too.”

Jesus uttered only one word, the word He says to all of us: “Come.” [Mt 14:28] Come. Come to me and I will ease all your burdens, remove all your fears.

Peter responds and in faith steps out of the boat. But then, as we so often do, he allows fear to dominate his faith. He turns from Jesus and sees instead the wind, the stormed-tossed sea, and in fear and doubt he begins to sink. Now, with a name like Peter – “The Rock” – I suspect he sank rather quickly. But Peter, the man of emotion, doesn’t hesitate and overcome by fear speaks the words we so often cry out in our own failures of faith: “Lord, save me!” Jesus, of course, responds at once. He reaches out a hand and grasps Peter, pulling him to safety.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus is our Savior not because of our piety or because of anything we have done…and certainly not because of our weak faith. He is our Savior simply because, out of love, He saves us. Because He is first our Savior, we can enjoy the wonder of a personal relationship with God Himself.

Now, I didn’t encounter God in that Pensacola tornado; no I saw only a storm, nature unleashed thanks to original sin. But like Peter I called out to God, and like Elijah I encountered God in the silence.

But the next morning I wandered over to the scene of destruction on Jackson Street; and It was there I saw God. I saw Him in the hundreds of people who volunteered to help their neighbors whose homes and businesses had been hammered by that storm. They cleared debris, brought food and clothing, and ministered to the victims in every way imaginable. It was in this selfless work, in this manifestation of love for one’s neighbor, that God’s quiet voice could be heard that day in Pensacola.

God is always there, calling us – “Come…and I will reveal my will for you.” – We need only listen.