Key Message:
With Jesus in our boat, we will always reach the shore. Homily: Takeaway from First Reading:
God says to Job in the first reading that He has commanded the proud waves of the sea, “Only this far you shall come and no farther”, and the proud waves stopped at the shore. This is synonymous with Jesus stopping the stormy rain, wind, and sea in today’s Gospel. The first reading is about how our God the Father always limits our sufferings. There is no part in God’s plan which says that our sufferings will be endless or limitless. Sin brings sufferings to both the sinner and saint. The saints sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the sinners and sinners pay the price of their sins until they repent. Takeaway from Second Reading:
Apostle Paul says that we need to live for Christ alone. Once we determine that we are going to live for Christ alone, then we begin to transform into a new person. Neither our work or home or family changes, but we will have a complete change in attitude. Things will not disturb us easily and we will experience more peace and joy. When our mind constantly thinks of living for Christ alone, slowly we will become selfless. This is the hardest battle of anyone’s life – overcoming selfishness. Instead of thinking “What’s in it for me?”, we will start thinking, “What can I do for our dear Jesus?” The sad Saul became a very happy Paul when he willingly embraced the new life God gave him. God is calling us also to become a new creation in Christ.
How to become a new creation in Christ?
We need to have a desire to change our thoughts, words, and actions according to Christ.
We would have been an angry, irritable person or lazy one… it can be anything of that kind. The willingness to change ourselves is necessary to enjoy the new life in Christ. We may be able to think of excuses like –c“These are born in me, so I cannot change” or “With such a set of people around me, I need to be like this” or “With my bad childhood, I have become like this”. All these thoughts will not allow us to move forward. It will make us remain where we are.
Steps for enjoying the new life in Christ:
a. Know that if God says there is new life, it is for us too.
b. Be ready to change for the good. We all have only one life.
c. There are Bible verses for every problem. At any time we can choose one area where we can discipline ourselves.
Example: If we want to suppress our anger: Ephesians 4:26-27: ‘“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.’
From this verse, we can infer that:
i. Anger is not a sin
ii. While getting the feeling of anger, we should not sin. Like venting our anger on others by shouting and so on… We should not show our feeling of anger to others by injuring them. When our children make us angry, there is no use in shouting at them, indirectly we are teaching them how to shout.
iii. For example, when we know that there is one person in our family who will definitely tempt us to get angry, let us make a resolution in our heart that regardless of how much s/he tempts us to get angry, we will not lose our cool. It works!! An advantage of this strategy is, this makes the other person lose his/her temptation to tempt us and he/she will try to obey us.
iv. We should not carry our anger to the next day. Before we sleep, we should sort it out, so that it does not grow more and more.
d. If we are unable to search for the ‘what to do verses’ manually in the Bible, then we too can google it!! The takeaway from the Gospel Reading:
We will primarily focus on the following takeaways from today’s Gospel reading.
1. To always have Jesus in our boat (either awake/sleeping);
2. Not to fear during critical challenges, because Jesus will take care of us;
3. To have an attitude of submission and endurance;
4. With Jesus in our boat, we will surely reach the other side (accomplish our purpose on earth).
1. To have Jesus in our little boat (either awake/sleeping):
Boat refers to – our individual heart, our church, our family, an institution, whatever it may be. Jesus needs to be there.
When will Jesus be in our boat? He keeps knocking to enter our boat. We only have to open the doors of our hearts for Him by having a conversation with Him always. God created mankind to love Him and have a conversation with Him. God liked to have a walk and chat with Adam and Eve (from the book of Genesis). So it’s a deep longing in our God’s heart always to chat with us. Can we chat with our Jesus?
2. No need to fear during critical challenges, because Jesus will take care of us:
Jesus was surprised that the disciples did not hold their peace in the storm. As the storm was great and the boat was sinking, the disciples responded to their first natural impulse – fear. Yet Jesus was sleeping peacefully in the boat. Jesus responded by saying, “There is nothing to fear. Even when you feel the whole world is falling apart, when I am with you, do not fear”.
I remember an old aunt who lost her husband and then her only daughter in her later years. Her daughter had a 10-year-old child when she died. The child’s father remarried and was not taking care of his son. So this aunt was taking care of her grandson. She was also having a couple of health issues, but they had enough finance to live comfortably. It was distressing for me to see both of them. I was saying to God, how come there is no middle-aged person in the family to take care of the aunt and her grandson? I simply heard the reply, “I have given her courage, isn’t it enough?” I called the aunt and told her. She immediately acknowledged it and said, “True, I know that God has given me the required courage to take care of me and my grandson. I don’t know how I will take care, but I know God will certainly take care of us”. Of late, I have witnessed God sending some middle-aged friends to help her out in her critical needs. Our God always equips us with the required power to run our life during our life’s storm. At times we would not have recognised the power God has bestowed on us to get through the storm. If we are enveloped with fear, let us ask our Jesus to give us the grace of courage to run our lives courageously.
3. To have an attitude of submission and endurance:
We read that the disciples woke up Jesus from His sleep because they did not have any hope. It was too much for them to take. Think about this – If the disciples would not have woken up our Jesus, would He have left the disciples to drown and die? Surely not. Before the storm could actually drown everyone Jesus would have got up on His own and stopped the storm. Will we be able to wait until Jesus gets up on His own or will we wake Him up? It is all in the difference in the kind of prayer we do. Do we pray, “Jesus, please give us the strength to persevere in this storm” or “Jesus, please calm the storm”?
4. With Jesus in our boat, we will surely reach the other side (complete our purpose on earth):
At the beginning of this story, Jesus said, “Let us go to the other side”. Finally, Jesus and His disciples reached the other side safely i.e. irrespective of the storm during the middle of the journey, they completed their journey. When we are searching for a job or waiting to get married or having a child or recovering from sickness or … whatever it may be, whenever our Jesus says, “Let us go to the other side”, irrespective of however fierce the storm is in the middle, we will always reach the shore finally.
Let us row our boats with Jesus inside the boat!!
Key Message:
With Jesus in our boat, we will always reach the shore.
Homily:
Takeaway from First Reading:
God says to Job in the first reading that He has commanded the proud waves of the sea, “Only this far you shall come and no farther”, and the proud waves stopped at the shore. This is synonymous with Jesus stopping the stormy rain, wind, and sea in today’s Gospel. The first reading is about how our God the Father always limits our sufferings. There is no part in God’s plan which says that our sufferings will be endless or limitless. Sin brings sufferings to both the sinner and saint. The saints sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the sinners and sinners pay the price of their sins until they repent.
Takeaway from Second Reading:
Apostle Paul says that we need to live for Christ alone. Once we determine that we are going to live for Christ alone, then we begin to transform into a new person. Neither our work or home or family changes, but we will have a complete change in attitude. Things will not disturb us easily and we will experience more peace and joy. When our mind constantly thinks of living for Christ alone, slowly we will become selfless. This is the hardest battle of anyone’s life – overcoming selfishness. Instead of thinking “What’s in it for me?”, we will start thinking, “What can I do for our dear Jesus?” The sad Saul became a very happy Paul when he willingly embraced the new life God gave him. God is calling us also to become a new creation in Christ.
How to become a new creation in Christ?
We need to have a desire to change our thoughts, words, and actions according to Christ.
We would have been an angry, irritable person or lazy one… it can be anything of that kind. The willingness to change ourselves is necessary to enjoy the new life in Christ. We may be able to think of excuses like –c“These are born in me, so I cannot change” or “With such a set of people around me, I need to be like this” or “With my bad childhood, I have become like this”. All these thoughts will not allow us to move forward. It will make us remain where we are.
Steps for enjoying the new life in Christ:
a. Know that if God says there is new life, it is for us too.
b. Be ready to change for the good. We all have only one life.
c. There are Bible verses for every problem. At any time we can choose one area where we can discipline ourselves.
Example: If we want to suppress our anger: Ephesians 4:26-27: ‘“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.’
From this verse, we can infer that:
i. Anger is not a sin
ii. While getting the feeling of anger, we should not sin. Like venting our anger on others by shouting and so on… We should not show our feeling of anger to others by injuring them. When our children make us angry, there is no use in shouting at them, indirectly we are teaching them how to shout.
iii. For example, when we know that there is one person in our family who will definitely tempt us to get angry, let us make a resolution in our heart that regardless of how much s/he tempts us to get angry, we will not lose our cool. It works!! An advantage of this strategy is, this makes the other person lose his/her temptation to tempt us and he/she will try to obey us.
iv. We should not carry our anger to the next day. Before we sleep, we should sort it out, so that it does not grow more and more.
d. If we are unable to search for the ‘what to do verses’ manually in the Bible, then we too can google it!!
The takeaway from the Gospel Reading:
We will primarily focus on the following takeaways from today’s Gospel reading.
1. To always have Jesus in our boat (either awake/sleeping);
2. Not to fear during critical challenges, because Jesus will take care of us;
3. To have an attitude of submission and endurance;
4. With Jesus in our boat, we will surely reach the other side (accomplish our purpose on earth).
1. To have Jesus in our little boat (either awake/sleeping):
Boat refers to – our individual heart, our church, our family, an institution, whatever it may be. Jesus needs to be there.
When will Jesus be in our boat? He keeps knocking to enter our boat. We only have to open the doors of our hearts for Him by having a conversation with Him always. God created mankind to love Him and have a conversation with Him. God liked to have a walk and chat with Adam and Eve (from the book of Genesis). So it’s a deep longing in our God’s heart always to chat with us. Can we chat with our Jesus?
2. No need to fear during critical challenges, because Jesus will take care of us:
Jesus was surprised that the disciples did not hold their peace in the storm. As the storm was great and the boat was sinking, the disciples responded to their first natural impulse – fear. Yet Jesus was sleeping peacefully in the boat. Jesus responded by saying, “There is nothing to fear. Even when you feel the whole world is falling apart, when I am with you, do not fear”.
I remember an old aunt who lost her husband and then her only daughter in her later years. Her daughter had a 10-year-old child when she died. The child’s father remarried and was not taking care of his son. So this aunt was taking care of her grandson. She was also having a couple of health issues, but they had enough finance to live comfortably. It was distressing for me to see both of them. I was saying to God, how come there is no middle-aged person in the family to take care of the aunt and her grandson? I simply heard the reply, “I have given her courage, isn’t it enough?” I called the aunt and told her. She immediately acknowledged it and said, “True, I know that God has given me the required courage to take care of me and my grandson. I don’t know how I will take care, but I know God will certainly take care of us”. Of late, I have witnessed God sending some middle-aged friends to help her out in her critical needs. Our God always equips us with the required power to run our life during our life’s storm. At times we would not have recognised the power God has bestowed on us to get through the storm. If we are enveloped with fear, let us ask our Jesus to give us the grace of courage to run our lives courageously.
3. To have an attitude of submission and endurance:
We read that the disciples woke up Jesus from His sleep because they did not have any hope. It was too much for them to take. Think about this – If the disciples would not have woken up our Jesus, would He have left the disciples to drown and die? Surely not. Before the storm could actually drown everyone Jesus would have got up on His own and stopped the storm. Will we be able to wait until Jesus gets up on His own or will we wake Him up? It is all in the difference in the kind of prayer we do. Do we pray, “Jesus, please give us the strength to persevere in this storm” or “Jesus, please calm the storm”?
4. With Jesus in our boat, we will surely reach the other side (complete our purpose on earth):
At the beginning of this story, Jesus said, “Let us go to the other side”. Finally, Jesus and His disciples reached the other side safely i.e. irrespective of the storm during the middle of the journey, they completed their journey. When we are searching for a job or waiting to get married or having a child or recovering from sickness or … whatever it may be, whenever our Jesus says, “Let us go to the other side”, irrespective of however fierce the storm is in the middle, we will always reach the shore finally.
Let us row our boats with Jesus inside the boat!!