Homilies & Reflections - August 2020

Fr. Gregory Havill, OSB
Monday, Week 18, Ordinary time
August 3, 2020
Jeremiah 28: 1-17
Matthew 14: 22-36
Readings

Today’s Gospel is the familiar story of Peter walking on the water.

It’s about as dramatic as it gets, with a storm at sea, a boat tossed about violently, terrified apostles and Peter in a panic foundering in the water.  With all this going on, it’s easy to miss that important little question Jesus asked Peter:  “…why did you doubt?”

Good question: Why did Peter doubt?  Why was it so easy for him to drop his faith in Jesus?  

Let’s look carefully at the sequence of events after Peter stepped out of the boat. It tells us a lot.  First, he begins to walk on the water.  In spite of being borne by a miracle he is frightened by the storm.  In doing that he sinks below the supernatural to the level of nature, and he sinks into the water as well.  His fear didn’t sink him.  His doubt did. Why?  The key lies in Jesus’ words: “You of little faith...”

Jesus isn’t criticizing Peter.  He’s only stating a fact: you are a man whose faith is “little”.

Peter did nothing wrong. He reacted in a perfectly normal way for one whose faith was “little”.

Caught up in a miracle, he was overwhelmed by fear and discarded his faith – in other words he doubted the power of Jesus and believed the power of the storm.

Peter’s “little faith” is human faith. Human faith is not the same as the theological virtue of faith only smaller. It’s something completely different. It’s trust, and it’s is a learned trait.  Some people trust more, some less, depending upon disposition, education and upbringing.  Just as trust can be acquired, it can be jettisoned, as we saw Peter do.

But that’s not the end of the story.  On Pentecost Peter and those with him will find their “little” faith replaced by “big” Faith, very, very big Faith, divine faith, in fact. They will receive from the Holy Spirit the gift of Faith along with the other theological virtues.  

We received these same graces in Baptism when we were marked with the indelible seal of Christ.   Indelible - that means that our Christian faith is not something acquired and jettisoned at will like trust.  It’s there to stay, but it can be neglected and left undeveloped.  

We grow in faith by living it and practicing it every day, especially in the Eucharist in which we are about to participate, our greatest means for perfection.  That’s not always easy.  Often the water does not seem to bear our weight.  What happened to Peter in the Sea of Galilee happens to each of us every day.  But so long as our faith remains one with the will of Jesus the waters of his love really do carry us.

Let us pray each day for an increase in Faith.