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You might be familiar with the centurion who pierced the side of Jesus as the Lord hung on the Cross. According to some traditions and legends that soldier was named Longinus, a name that first surfaces in the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus. The soldier is not named in the canonical gospels.

According to the legends, after enduring wounds in past battles, Longinus was cruelly mocked by his fellow soldiers for his near blindness. At the moment he pierced the Lord’s side, blood spattered onto his eyes. Immediately his sight was restored.  In the Gospel of Saint Mark we hear him exclaim, “Indeed, this was the son of God!”

Tradition also tells us that Longinus left the army, took instruction from the apostles and became a monk in Cappadocia. There he was arrested for his faith, his teeth forced out and his tongue cut off. However, Longinus miraculously continued to speak clearly and managed to destroy several idols in the presence of the governor. The governor, who was blinded by the demons that escaped from the idols, had his sight miraculously restored by Longinus.

As Longinus was beheaded, some of his blood splattered onto the governors’ eyes and the governor was instantly healed. Saint Longinus is one of the first martyrs of the Church. His spear is one of the many relics associated with Christ and can be found in one of the four pillars over the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Can your brokenness bring great blessings?

Recently my husband and I had a school appointment to assess our 6 years old son Asher’s inattention and performance issues. The assessment went on for over two hours and included separate counselling and Q/A sessions for me and my husband.  We badly needed the assessment to help us understand Asher’s challenges and help him improve and perform well in his activities.

I sat at the assessment centre with my daughter on my lap as my son played in a room filled with toys and puzzles. The assessor brought in questionnaires and began asking me questions. She asked about the family history, pregnancy complications, medications, challenges at home, Asher’s performance at home and school, difficulties he is facing, family support etc. She recorded all my responses.

After completing the questionnaires, and perhaps getting a glimpse of the depth of my emotional state, the counsellor said she couldn’t keep from asking me a very personal question – “How are you coping emotionally with all these challenges? What is the source of your strength?” I said that I have a faith in God and I believe He gives me strength to face each day.

I wondered how much sense that secret of my strength made to her. All she knew of me was that I was a complete mess—holding a four-year-old daughter in my lap who is almost in a vegetative state, another child struggling to fit himself into a world which doesn’t function the way he does, and me a clearly worn-out mom sitting in the assessment centre hoping they track my son’s uniqueness not just his flaws and give me some handy parenting tips to take home.

But to my surprise, the counsellor nodded her head with a smile and with tear-filled eyes she agreed with me about what I claimed to be my source of strength.

I thought my complicated life would disqualify me from sharing my faith in Jesus. But I have found that sharing my faith through my brokenness reveals Christs power in my life.  As Saint Paul rightly says, His power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:8).

Usually, we want to glorify God through our strength and successes and so we wait till things are running smoothly in our lives to give witness. But God also wants to use our brokenness for His glory. He wants us to share our faith right in the middle of our trials.

In his book “The Purpose Driven Life” Rick Warren shares words that give me great comfort: “Your weaknesses are not an accident. God deliberately allowed them in your life for the purpose of demonstrating His power through you. Other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts.”

If you find yourself in the middle of pain and in the midst of darkness, don’t waste those experiences. Use them to glorify God. Don’t wait till everything improves so you can say, See how I got through it! Consider letting God minister to others through your very chaos. Let His strength be manifested through your brokenness as you lean on Him for courage. The very thing you feel disqualifies you from sharing your faith can be the one thing that most clearly proclaims your faith and witnesses to God’s love.  I hope my experience encourages you today.

My monastery runs a school, and last year, I was given the great honor of teaching Theology to seventh-graders.  I had twenty-two of them for the last period of class every day of the week.  Now, no teacher in his right mind would ever choose to teach any subject during the last period of the day, and seventh graders trump every other grade in the school for sheer excitability.  So we invented a game called “Stump the Monk” which we would play for the last five minutes of class if the whole group was very, very good.

The best “monk-stumper” I ever heard came from a spunky, freckled little firebrand named Chad: “If Jesus loves us so much,” he said, “then why doesn’t he just come down and show himself to us?”

“Jesus does show himself to us,” I told him, “every time we receive the Eucharist.”

“Right. Right.”  He answered with a sigh, “but what I’m asking is: Why doesn’t he personally, physically come down and visit us?”

“He does!” I replied, “In the Eucharist he personally, physically comes down and visits us.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he said, “I want to know why he doesn’t make personal, face-to-face appearances to people like me.”

“Well he does that too,” I said, “You just have to be patient.”

Chad wasn’t going to be put off that easily, I could tell.  “So you’re telling me,” he said, “that you have personally, physically, met Jesus Christ face-to-face.  You’ve seen him.  You’ve personally seen God.”

I looked him in the eye and I said, “Yes, Chad, I have.”

“Fine!” he said, “Then what does he look like?”

There was a nervous silence in the classroom as he and the other students waited for my answer.  And for a moment or two, I was a little afraid I was going to have to back down.  But the answer came to me like a gift from heaven.  “Chad,” I said, “I have met Jesus.  Face to face. And you know what?  He looks a lot like you.”

There’s something precious within you!

They say the only two sure things in life are death and taxes. But having spent my working life in the construction industry and having known people who made money dealing drugs, I can safely say the quote is only half true. Death surely does await us all, though most of us rarely think about it until we are forced to. We focus on our mortal, temporal bodies and forget about our eternal souls.  But eternity is real and now is the time to decide where we want to spend it.

A few years ago, I had the privilege and blessing of volunteering with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in a Calcutta (Kolkata), India home for the destitute, sick, and dying. Mother Teresa said, ‘A beautiful death is for people who have lived like animals to die like angels.’ I was blessed to experience such a death first-hand during my first visit to India.

I was staying with religious brothers on the night they received the news that Mother Teresa’s successor as superior of the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Nirmala, had died. The community was in mourning and as I prayed I felt the night sky change. It was as if Heaven was opening to receive this holy and faithful woman. Strangely, though, I felt the “opening” was not just for Sr. Nirmala, but also for someone else who would die soon. I felt in my spirit that someone in the home where I was volunteering would die the following day. I even wrote it in my journal. That night, I barely slept.

The following morning after attending Holy Mass and praying upon entering the home, I immediately went to the two most seriously ill men to make sure they were still living. Thankfully, they were. I set about my duties as usual. But soon one of the sisters took me by the arm and asked if I knew how to pray. I told her I did.

She took me to a man she believed had not long to live and asked me to pray with him. I sat at his bedside with my hand on his heart and began to pray. His eyes were staring at the ceiling and I sensed he had totally given up. He had lost so much weight that his face had grown gaunt and his cheeks hollow. His eyes were so sunken in that his tears pooled in the corners of his eyes and couldn’t run down his cheeks. My heart ached. As I prayed, I could see the hand I had placed on his chest moving up and down slower and slower with each successive breath.  His life was slipping away. Upset, I began to ask God questions: Does this man have a family and if so, where are they? Why aren’t they here? Do they know what has become of this man? Do they care? Does anybody care?

Through my prayer, I began hearing drumbeats coming from the Hindu temple next door, a temple dedicated to the goddess Khali (the goddess of death). The drumbeat grew steadily louder. I sensed a battle raging for this man’s soul. When I saw him take his last breath, I closed my eyes and wept.

But when I opened them again, I suddenly found the answers to my questions. Unbeknown to me, two of the sisters, a brother, and another volunteer had also gathered around the deathbed. They stood silently in prayer.  Did anybody care? Of course, they did! Where was his family? Right there praying for him–the family of God! I broke down in tears regretting how I had questioned God but also filled with awe and gratitude for His infinite goodness and mercy. I could not ask for anything more special at the hour of my own death than to be surrounded by people fervently and lovingly praying for my salvation. As I closed my eyes to pray again, I saw an image of the deceased man dressed in brilliant white, walking towards Jesus. Jesus’ arms were open wide as he waited for the man and then embraced him with great love. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

But God had more light to shine into my heart. With my hand still on the dead man’s chest, I opened my eyes and saw a man in a nearby bed who had soiled his pants. No one else had noticed him, so I had a decision to make: I could continue praying for a man who I now believed to be with Jesus or I could get up and help restore another man’s dignity. It was an easy choice. I stood up straight away and cleaned the bedridden man and put fresh clothes on him. What I heard silently in my heart was, ‘life goes on’.

Those who walk with Jesus know death is not to be feared. In fact, Christians, death should excite us: Paul says it persuasively: ‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 8:38-39).

Yes, life goes on, but for each of us it will also end one day. Our time here is short, and eternity is long’. So, with St. Paul let us forget ‘what lies behind and (instead) strain forward to what lies ahead and press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 3:14).

Grieving over loss of a loved one? Here is a mother’s heartfelt account of how she found hope

even in the darkest valley.

We were blessed with two sons. David the oldest had golden blonde hair. Our youngest son, Chris, had dark hair.  David’s blonde hair would get even lighter during the summer months when he’d been out in the sun. Our boys were the joy of our lives.

When David was seventeen, life handed us a devastating blow. A catastrophic car accident killed him and a friend. Our hearts were shattered into a million and one pieces. We were in shock for weeks. Suddenly, our family of four was reduced to three as one was violently ripped from us.  My husband and I and our 15-year old son, Chris, clung to each other, our friends, and our faith. Taking it one day at a time was even too much, I had to take it minute by minute and hour by hour. I thought the pain would never leave us.

Visiting David’s grave provided some relief from the deep sense of loss. I would visit his grave at least once a week. The cemetery in our small town is beautifully maintained. Lovely grass and trees enhance its quiet tranquillity. The road into the cemetery follows a circular path. You can see anyone leaving or entering from any vantage point.

One day, as I sat on the grass beside my son’s grave, the tears began to flow down my face. I was very concerned about his brother, Chris who was having a very difficult time coping with the loss of his only brother. After pouring out my heart, I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked around the cemetery. A young boy, in a white tank top with very blonde hair, was riding a bike around the cemetery. He rode his bike so smoothly and effortlessly that I was captivated. I idly wondered why a child might be riding a bike in a cemetery? For an instant, I glanced down at my son’s grave, then looked back, but the blonde boy on the bike had vanished before my eyes. I kept searching around for him, but he was gone. I sensed, from the depths of my soul, that it was my son, David. The white tank top the boy wore was identical to one David had worn all the time.  It felt like David had visited me that day at the cemetery, to comfort me and let me know that he is at peace.

To this day, I cannot explain the encounter, but the memory is engraved on my heart forever by the Holy Spirit. I believe that God granted this heavenly encounter to assure me that I am not grieving alone. Jesus weeps with me and the Holy Spirit wipes away my tears, one day at a time. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1.

After this mysterious encounter, my heavy burden lightened a little.  Even though many years have passed since our David died, the sorrow of losing our child lingers in our hearts. Grief has no time limits. It lessens with time, but mothers and fathers mourn forever. I find comfort in the hope that we will see our precious son again one day.

When tragedy and death strike a family, everyone can become overwhelmed with grief. Processing loss is challenging, plunging us into deep, dark valleys; but God’s love and His amazing grace can infuse rays of sunshine and hope into our lives again.

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” Isaiah 54:10

It’s time to fight your fears away…

It was yet another Covid Sunday when I was ‘attending’ an online Mass with my family. Even at the behest of COVID, I could see that the Holy Spirit continued to inspire us through online Masses and powerful homilies. Despite that, due to my own weaknesses, I could see that my attentiveness and devotion to the Holy Mass had greatly reduced over a period of time. As the Mass continued, the priest was giving the Holy Eucharist to the very few people able to attend the Mass in person. On one side, I was feeling sad that I could not receive the Holy Eucharist and on the other side, I was trying to justify that staying home was the most prudent thing to do.

My spouse was also ‘attending’ the online mass with me while taking care of the kids. She works in the medical field, so has a natural awareness of actions which are not meeting the standard COVID protocol. She noticed that the priest missed sanitizing his hands before he gave the Holy Eucharist to the few parishioners attending the Mass. After that I felt bad about passing judgment on others. Though I was convinced that attending Mass online was the right thing to do, I wanted to try going to Mass at the Church again.  Despite the guilty feelings, I took courage and registered to attend Mass the next week. I doubted if it was a prudent decision at the time and had a hard time convincing my family.

Still beset by fear and anxiety, I set off for Mass the next Sunday. Despite a higher mortality rate for older people getting infected by COVID, almost all the people attending the Mass were old. I had no known health conditions and. despite being in my mid 30’s which is among the least affected age demographics for COVID, I was afraid to go to church. Sometimes I used to daydream about fearlessly standing up to proclaim my faith in Jesus Christ, like the early Christian Saints who were persecuted for doing so. Now at the smallest test of my faith, I had failed miserably.

I remembered all the days when I went out to buy groceries and other things which I had considered more essential than my spiritual food. I recalled my own assertion that Jesus Christ was truly present in the Holy Eucharist and many conversations about the Eucharistic miracles. But for many months, I had feared going to church to receive the Holy Eucharist and passed judgmental thoughts on the priest and others. God made me aware of how cowardly I was. My former words rang hollow and I lamented my failure to support my convictions with my actions.

I realized that despite being at home for close to a year, I was not getting any time for personal prayer and I my family’s prayer life had considerably reduced. We were fully engaged with work and household activities, while television and streaming services took up any free time remaining.

I thought back to the days before COVID changed our lives. My prayer life was much better and  I felt more motivated to live a holy life because I wanted to receive the Holy Eucharist whenever I went to Mass. I realized that my own holiness and prayer life was dependent on attending Mass and receiving the Holy Eucharist. Luke 17:33 kept coming to my mind,

Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.

Because I am weaker than others, I have come to understand that my eternal life is very much dependent on attending Holy Mass and receiving the Lord in the Holy Eucharist as much as possible. Receiving the Holy Eucharist that day was very special, as I had been missing my spiritual food for such a long time. I still have my own little fears about COVID, especially because of any harm that I could cause to my family, but I am starting to put my faith in action by trusting our all powerful, merciful, understanding God and receiving my spiritual food at least every week.

Saint Francis of Assisi once had a great fear and abhorrence of lepers. He confessed that the sight of a leper was so repugnant to him that he refused to even approach their dwellings. If he chanced to glimpse one in his travels or pass by the leprosarium, he turned his head away and blocked his nose.

As he became more serious about his faith and took on Christ’s admonition to love others as you love yourself, he became ashamed of this attitude. So one day when a man afflicted with leprosy crossed his path, he overcame his feelings of horror and disgust and, instead of turning away, leaped off his horse, kissed the leper and pressed money into his hand.

But when Francis remounted and looked back, he could not find the leper anywhere. With dawning excitement, he realized that it was Jesus whom he had kissed. After gathering some funds, he went to the leper hospital and gave alms to each one, kissing their hands with reverence as he did so. What had formerly seemed distasteful to him—the sight or touch of a leper—was transformed into sweetness. Later Francis wrote, “When I was in sin, the sight of lepers nauseated me beyond measure; but then God Himself led me into their company, and I had pity on them. When I became acquainted with them, what had previously nauseated me became the source of spiritual and physical consolation for me.”

Today, we often see people around us who are stricken with spiritual leprosy. Mostly we try to keep away from them, but we fail to realize that it has crept into our own hearts as well. So instead of judging and pointing fingers at others, let’s cleanse ourselves off the crippling mind and hardness of heart. In the first place, God bestowed His grace and mercy upon us though we are broken and wounded. Let’s reach out to others with this mercy and compassion which we received unconditionally.

Q – It grieves my heart to see so much division in the world. Whether it is divisions between races, political animosity, and even rifts within the Church, there seems to be nothing but hatred, division, and anger in our culture today. As a Catholic, how can I do my part to bring healing to our world which is so divided?

A – Ever since Cain and Abel, division and hatred has been a primary tool of the Evil One. Today, through social media and with the issues that people feel strongly about, I believe we are experiencing an unprecedented time of animosity within our world. But our Catholic Faith can show us a better way!

First, we must recall the fundamental truth that every human being is made in God’s image—including our enemies. As Mother Teresa once said, “We have forgotten that we belong to one another.” The person of a different race or political persuasion, that person we are arguing with on Facebook or who is standing on the opposite side of the picket line, is a beloved child of God whom Jesus died for. It’s easy for us to label people and dismiss them—we say, “Oh, he’s just so ignorant for believing X” or “She’s so evil for endorsing candidate Y”—but this dismisses their great dignity. Our opponents have the potential to become saints, and are recipients of God’s mercy and love, just like we are.

One of the great errors of the modern world says that in order to love someone, we must always agree with them. This is absolutely false! We can love people who have different political persuasions, sexual orientations, theological standpoints. In fact, we must love them. It is far more important to win a soul to Christ than it is to win an argument, and the only way to win a soul is through love. As Pope St. John Paul II once said, “The only proper response to a human being is love.”

Love of our opponents takes many forms. We try to do concrete works of mercy for them—so if we see them thirsty because they are protesting on a hot summer’s day, we offer them water, even if we don’t agree with their message. We make sure that our dialogue with them is respectful and sticks to the issues, rather than devolving into a name-calling session (especially when we respond to them online). We pray for them—for their conversion, for their deeper healing, for their sanctification, and for material blessings. We genuinely seek to understand their position, rather than just dismissing it. Even people who believe errors have common ground with us—seek out that common ground, affirm it, and build on it to lead them to the truth. And sometimes that love can best be shown by offering them the truth of Christ in a loving way.  Also, we should be humble enough to recognize that sometimes we are the ones in the wrong, and we need to be taught by others’ insights and experience.

Finally, I think it is important to avoid websites and news articles that are purposely inflammatory. Many news outlets and social media sites make their living by stirring up outrage and anger. But God desires Christians to be filled with peace and love! So avoid those websites or articles or authors who simply try to stir up controversy for the sake of ratings or website clicks.

St. Paul in Romans 12 gives us a good admonition: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Only true Christian charity, carried out in words and deeds, will heal the divisions in our culture and our world.

Too often we are keen to jot down the resolutions; but fail to keep them. How about having a twist this time?

Drifting to Nowhere

At this time of year, the feeling that my life was adrift was an annual occurrence. The end of one year and the beginning of another, inevitably led me to contemplate the changes I wanted to make in my life and within myself. However, a few weeks into the year, New Year’s resolutions took on less importance. The energy these intentions gave me on December 31st and through January would inevitably begin to wane. I always wanted to move forward in the quest for holiness and better myself, but so often I just got stuck. Although the good intentions were still there, knowing how to make it happen and stick to them, often eluded me. Figuratively speaking, I felt as though I was stationary or drifting without direction.

Knowing my love of words, God has a way of speaking the language of my heart. One evening a few years ago, as the annual post New Year rut was weighing on my heart, a poem seemed to flow from my heart like an answer to my prayer.

I, Myself and Me
There was a ship that sat
Amid the still deep sea,
The only souls that came aboard were
I, Myself and Me
We sat and watched each sunset
With silence, not a sound.
I thought there was a whisper
And got up to look around.
A presence filled the air that night.
That nobody could see.
Its message was intended for
I, Myself and Me
My voice then broke into the night
I said to Myself and Me,
“How can we just be sitting here?
We’ve lost our destiny!”
I told Myself to take the helm
And set a course for Me.
I seized hold of the captain’s wheel
To steer us through the sea.
The ship it made no motion.
I still sat amid the sea.
We had the will to make her move,
but could not….
I, myself nor me.
A whisper sounded once again,
And said these words to Me
“Call to the wind and ask for help,
It’s power can set you free!”
Me, Myself held hands with I
We bowed on bended knee.
We asked the Spirit in the wind
“Blow us across the sea!”
We felt a shift, a motion,
Our course what would it be?
The ship it turned within the wind,
To glide most effortlessly.
We knew not the direction
Or how rough the sea would be.
We had to trust the Spirit
To lead
I, Myself and Me.

Just a Call Away

The first draft of this poem flowed from my pen so quickly; I could not write fast enough to keep up with the message God wanted me to contemplate. You see, for a great part of my life I considered God as my very own wonderful insurance plan. Decisions concerning my life were mine to make and if something didn’t go quite right, I’d call on Him to get me out of a bind. I would call on Him as I would an insurance agent.

I always knew He was there, but it didn’t seem right to burden Him with the mundane day to day decisions. It was like: I am glad my insurance agent is a phone call away, but I don’t need him driving with me in my car every day.

The world told me that I was the captain of my own ship! I believed I was the captain of my own ship, but as each year passed I became aware that I did not possess my own compass. What silly thinking! Furthermore, I didn’t even know how to sail. I didn’t know the first thing about navigation or setting a course through rough waters! It was this kind of wrong thinking that left me stuck or adrift, the first few months of each new year. God was never my insurance plan. He knows the plan for my life better than I ever would. He was and is the plan!

A New Twist

It was important to recognise the need for improvement in my life and to desire holiness, but I couldn’t do it on my own by sheer will power. When I contemplated the words that spilled over into the poem, I felt God knocking on my heart to assure me that He was there, just waiting for me to ask Him to direct my life. He wanted to give me the plan and the means to do it. God tells us in Proverbs 3:5-8: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely. In all your ways be mindful of Him, and He will make straight your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes.”

It took a long time, as each resolution was made and forgotten, for me to realize that I should ask God what His plan would have been for me in the New Year. As I began to align my will with His will, it became clear that I did not lack willpower. How foolish I had been. When I aligned my will with His, I received His power through me. Saint Paul tells us in Phillipians 4:13 “I have the strength for everything through Him who empowers me.”

My New Year’s resolutions have a new twist to them these days. In contemplative prayer I ask God to reveal, in His time, His New Year’s plan for me. In humility I ask the Holy Spirit to lead me and make things happen according to God’s holy plan. I ask for the gift of faith, so that even in the dark waters, I will know His presence, trust that He is leading me and accept His holy will for my life. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you; plans for your welfare and not your woe, so as to give you a future of hope.” Isn’t that lovely?

For those of us who have the benefit of age and experience, it is clear that there are seasons and times for everything in life. This may be the time to stop drifting and this may be the season to align your New Year’s resolution(s) with God’s holy will for you. May Almighty God Bless you and speak to you in the language of your heart.

On a recent bushwalk, my daughter was afflicted by a bad mood just as we had clambered up to a spectacular cavern. While we were all marvelling at the natural beauty, she kept her gaze steadily downward, refusing to look up. It seemed illogical to deny herself a single glance at the grandeur surrounding us, only to stare at the dull earth beneath her feet or clamp her hands over her eyes lest a single glimpse should tempt her out of her mood.

Upon reflection, it reminded me of the times when I am so immersed in the anxieties and workload of everyday life that I fail to appreciate the treasures God has placed before me—the wonder of a child’s smile; the warmth of the sun on a winter morning; the meal lovingly prepared by my husband; or the amazing sunrises and sunsets that God paints in the sky every day.

How often do we distract ourselves from our cares with an overload of banal screen time? Endless varieties of movies, series, reality TV shows, sport, social media and computer games compete for our attention. Yet there never seems to be enough time for prayer, family activities and home duties. We so often lament that we don’t have enough time to interact with friends in real life. Yet even our time with friends or family is often centred around a screen, or everyone has a screen in hand.

Perhaps it is time to turn off the screens, pull out the earphones, and cast our eyes upwards to embrace the glory that the Lord offers us every day. Let us give thanks to God and invite him into our daily engagement with the real world surrounding us.

The storms of life can be downright terrifying but, when they rage, we are never alone.

I grew up in Hawaii and during my junior year of high school I participated as a student teacher in an educational program that taught kids about Marine Biology. We took groups of students on a large sailboat for 4-hour excursions which included dredging for sedimentary samples on the bottom of the ocean floor, learning basic navigation, and casting a large net to gather and learn about the creatures of the sea.

Part of our volunteer work included helping the hired crew sail the yacht to each of the Hawaiian islands so we could offer this excellent program to students in schools throughout the state. I vividly remember the night we were sailing around the island of Maui. Two of us volunteers were on watch when suddenly a huge storm came up. Waves washed over the sides of the boat as my companion and I struggled to keep the wheel pointed in the right direction. The trained crew came topside to help us. The winds were so strong, they were blowing us off course. To avoid being swept overboard, we had to strap on harnesses and hook ourselves to the rails. We battled the storm for several hours before reaching the calm of a sheltered harbor.

I often think of this experience when I read the Gospel about Jesus and the disciples caught in the storm at sea. “He got into a boat and his disciples followed Him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but He was asleep. They came and woke Him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ He said to them, ‘Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?’ Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, ‘What sort of man is this, Whom even the winds and the sea obey?’” Matthew 8:23-27

The disciples had spent their lives on the sea, and surely they all knew people who had died in storms. They knew how dangerous these sudden squalls could be and how terrifying it is to be in a boat that is getting tossed about by the tremendous power of the wind and waves.

And yet Jesus was able to sleep through that storm! His disciples had to wake him up to get His help and He seemed surprised that they were terrified. He calmly addressed the elements and restored order and peace to nature, all to the utter amazement of His friends. So they marveled, “What sort of man is this, Whom even the winds and the sea obey?”

What can we learn from this episode? The year 2020 has been a stormy one in so many ways: a worldwide pandemic, natural disasters, racial tensions, economic crises, to name just a few. Many are plagued with worry and anxiety in these uncertain times feeling that the foundations we stand on are shifting and buckling beneath us.

For my own family, it has been the strain of unemployment that has rocked us. My sister lost her job at the start of the pandemic and my brother had been searching for work, even before lockdowns started. Trying to find work seemed hopeless since businesses were shutting down and people were being laid off. But we called out to the Lord, “waking” Jesus up with our prayers day after day asking Him to do the impossible. And Jesus heard our cries. My brother got a job with a company just days before it enacted a hiring freeze and my sister found good-paying work as a consultant.

Storms are never easy. In fact, they can be downright terrifying! But God is with us in every storm. Jesus is in the boat and never leaves our side. That is his promise: “I will never forsake you or abandon you” (Hebrews. 13:5), and that is his name: Emmanuel, “God with us.”

When it seems like the waves are going to swamp you and you feel vulnerable and alone, call out to God. Keep calling out, even if it seems like He is asleep. Look with the eyes of faith and you will see Jesus in the boat with you. Remember, “There is no one like God…who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in His majesty. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33: 26-27).

No matter what the storm.