19 Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

"You have so little faith, why did you doubt?"

The spectacular miracle of walking on the water seems to be -at least- incomprehensible. Jesus walking on the water is –for the apostles fighting with strong winds and turbulent waves- a kind of ghost. He scares them and they don't know how to react. After all, they know their job and yet with the tempest they cannot handle the boat. And, behold, Jesus walks on stormy waves of a lake, as on the paved road, as if nothing was happening around him, as if there was no storm and strong wind, no waves, if these elements do not have any power over Him.

Because they do not have … ANY power over HIM !!!

Is it not similar in our lives that very often we are in the same situation? We cannot cope with the well-known matters of our life? The life is simply beyond us that is beyond our strength, beyond our capacity or ability to handle it. We face it and try to do something, but nothing we do seems to work. What should be known and be familiar to us suddenly becomes strange and hostile. And then, Jesus comes and we treat him like a ghost or phantom, like an unreal spirit. And when -as to the disciples in the boat- Jesus says, "Fear not, I am" we disbelief and like Peter we try to verify these words. Like Peter we try to march on the water and we are sinking like Peter, because we lack faith, because our faith is small.

The event described in today's Gospel ceases to be incomprehensible and only spectacular, if you look at it from that perspective. Jesus wants us -as well as all His disciples- to show that He really is the Lord of the world, the Lord of matter, the Lord of all the elements and the Lord of our lives. He wants to assure us that where we do not know how to cope and where our efforts are futile or ineffective He can make extraordinary things. He wants us to make sure that He is not only a ghost or spirit, that going into our lives He won't to frighten and terrify us, but to help and to silence all the storms and all the worries. If I could trust and believe Him, if I don't expose Him to the tests, if I have more faith ... then I could walk on the rough waves of the lake ...