Parable of the marriage feast

            God has invited us to a wedding banquet in the kingdom of heaven. We are all invited; he wants all us to be saved, to be with him. No one is left out of his invitation. But He respects our freedom; it’s only an invitation, it is not compulsory to accept, even though it is for our own good. It is a wedding banquet. For the Jews it was the highest degree of happiness. It lasted for few days. For us a wedding reception is also a big celebration, but only lasts for few hours, where everything has to be perfect and normally it costs a lot of money. We all love going to weddings.

            But this is a special wedding. It is the wedding of Christ and his Church. Christ is the bridegroom and we are his bride. He is not only inviting us to his wedding as guests, but as his bride. He is proposing a union with us, a union more intimate than the marriage union. Marriage is only for this earth, where we need to generate children. Jesus says that in heaven we won’t get married. The union that Jesus is proposing to us is an everlasting union, a union for the whole of eternity. He wants us to be so united with him, that we become more like him. Now here on earth Jesus is already offering us his engagement ring. This engagement normally lasts for the years we live here. But for the saints, the wedding banquet begins here. If we want to, we can also have it here.

            But most of us don’t want to go to his wedding. It is silly but we don’t know much about it; we are not sure. We invent plenty of excuses not to go: “I have a business to attend, I just bought a new gadget, I am watching tv, listening to music, resting in my bed, doing my own thing.” Every time we don’t follow his will, every time we sin, we are telling him that we don’t accept his engagement ring, or we are throwing the ring back in his face, breaking the engagement. We fail to see the beautiful, precious stone in the ring. It has more power than the ring of “The Lord of the Rings”. It is the ring that opens for us the gates of paradise.

            It is impossible for us to imagine what heaven is like. That’s why we reject the invitation. This rejection can be so blatant that it merits eternal punishment. Both, the no to God and the existence of hell puzzle us. I’ve heard a man saying that he doesn’t believe in a God that created hell. We are the ones who have created it with our evil deeds. God on the contrary wants to be with us for ever. People in hell don’t want to leave, they won’t ask God for forgiveness. We should better concentrate in our yes to God and to the amazing place he has prepared for us.

            One of the guests at the wedding banquet is thrown out because doesn’t have the proper dress. Saint Gregory the Great says that the wedding garment is the theological virtue of charity, our love of God. It is the only virtue that perdures in heaven. If we are not dressed with this garment, we are going to be thrown out from the banquet hall into the outer darkness. We have our whole life to weave our wedding dress. We cannot do it in one go; it is a long life task. We do it every day, one step at a time, one thread a day. Sometimes we are like Penelope, who weaved during the day and unraveled it at night. We need to renew our love of God every day.

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Parable of the wicked tenants

             Today’s readings talk about how much God has done for us and our failure to correspond to his love. The first reading from the book of Isaiah is a song exulting the vineyard. An orchard with vines was very precious in the Mediterranean area. It produced grapes, fruit for the time, wine, a good healthy drink with no bugs, and dried fruit, raisins, for the months ahead. It required a lot of work to keep the vines healthy, and to learn the art of winemaking. The parable of the wicked tenants highlights our responsibility in looking after the vineyard of the Lord and the duty to produce a good spiritual wine in due time. It is also a reminder of our history of salvation.

            God first entrusted his vineyard to the chosen people. He gave them what they needed, a promised land, a land of milk and honey; he dig a trench around it, making sure they lived in peace and prosperity, getting rid of all the enemies surrounding them; and built a watch tower in the middle of it, giving them prophets and kings to lead them. But they were unfaithful to him and adored the neighbor’s gods. God tried everything with them and forgave them when they repented. But they kept rebelling against him and in the end He sent them his only Son as the last resort. They seized him, threw him out of Jerusalem and killed him.

            Today is good day to examine ourselves. How are we taking care of the vineyard, of the piece of the kingdom God has entrusted to us? It is not ours, but we should take care of it as if it was ours, our personal responsibility. We should make sure we yield the fruit God is expecting from us, not our personal product; it should be something for others, not just for ourselves. It will be a pity if we were to hear the admonition of Jesus at the end of the parable, directed to the Jews: “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”

            What sort of fruit are we producing? Are we only collecting wild, sour grapes? Is our life worthwhile, full of beautiful sweet grapes? God has been so good to us. He has given us all we need to look after his vineyard. And we, like the chosen people, are often ungrateful, we are lazy, we don’t put the time and dedication our job deserves, and we let the vineyard to go waste. Instead of looking after what God has given us, we look over our neighbor’s fence and we envy him his vineyard. We think that his grass is greener. At the end we fail to produce the wine God is expectimg from us.

            A friend of mine, a winemaker, told me about this famous winemaker who makes only five hundred bottles a year, mixing with art good vintages, and sells them in the US for a thousand dollars a bottle, a wine only for the rich and glamorous. He makes half a million dollars. I asked him if it is a good wine. He said: “It must be a good wine, but I don’t know if it is worth a thousand dollars. I cannot afford the test it.” This is the wine we need to produce, a wine worth a million dollars, worthy for the table of the Lord, a wine to be tasted for eternity, that will last for ever.

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Parable of the two sons

            Last Sunday, today and next Sunday we have the parables of the vineyard. Israel is described in the Old Testament as the vineyard of the Lord. It represents the care God has for his people. A vineyard demands a lot of work to produce the right wine. The first miracle Jesus performed was to convert water into wine. Wine is compared to the grace God gives us to make us happier, to become more like him. Saint John of Cross says that “The cellar is the highest degree of love to which the soul may attain in this life.” We cannot forget that which becomes the blood of Christ during the Mass is wine.

            God allows us to help him to produce a good vintage. He sends us into his vineyard. It is important to consider that the vineyard is our own inheritance. The wine we are producing is for our eternal life: this is the wine that we are going to drink for all eternity, and we need to make sure it is of the best quality. A king once asked his son to build a castle. He gave him a lot of money for the project. The son, who was a greedy man, kept most of the money and built a cheap castle. When he finished, he gave the keys of the castle to his father. The king gave the keys back to his son saying: “This is precisely your inheritance.” We should be very interested in working in the vineyard of the Lord, working hard and well, because we are directly interested in producing our best.

            When God asks us to work in his vineyard, sometimes we say yes, sometimes we say no; sometimes we go, sometimes we don’t go. We are sinners and many times our first reaction is negative. But afterwards we change our minds. We shouldn’t be too concerned about our first intention, many times a product of our selfishness or pride, but make sure we change our minds and we do what God wants us to do. What’s important is the end result. The parable of today was proposed to the Jews who rejected to work in the vineyard of the Lord and therefore God gave his vineyard to all of us. We should be grateful that we are allowed to make wine, a marvelous privilege, a wine that is going to last for ever.

            When we obey, we conform our will to God’s will. God prefers our obedience rather than heroic acts which maybe product of our selfishness. Saint Teresa of Avila was jealous of a famous nun who was doing a lot of penance. Her spiritual director didn’t allow her to imitate this nun. When she complained to Jesus, he told her that he preferred her obedience rather than the penance of this nun. We can do a lot of good things out of pride, but obedience always brings about humility.

            The second reading of today’s Mass, from the letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul proposes the example of Jesus, who humbled himself and became obedient unto death and death on the cross. The crucifixion was considered the most degrading form of execution. It was reserved for the worst criminals. Jesus gives us a lesson in obedience, following the will of his Father, to give his life for us in a most cruel way. When we find it difficult to do what God wants us to do, we can look at Jesus dying on the cross.

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Labourers in the vineyard

             We can relate to this parable in South Africa. So many people looking for work. Often you see them at roundabouts, with a sign announcing their skills: electrician, plumber, carpenter, painter. All waiting for somebody to hire them for the day. We can pray for these people that they find work to feed their families. And pray for the corruption to go away, greedy people who only look after themselves.

            We all feel uneasy with this parable, sympathising with the workers that worked for the whole day and got the same wages as the ones who worked only for an hour. It is not fair. Children use this expression when they see something that lacks equality. But parents treat different children differently. The same with God. We are all the same in God’s eyes, with the same dignity, but God gives different graces to all of us. Why? Because we are all unique, and we all show different perfections and qualities of God. Variety brings forth many more gifts. Imagine if all of us were the same; life would be boring, all cracking the same jokes, inventing the same stories, composing the same music. Opposites attract each other, different skills balance societies, the more choices the more richness. At the end God gives the same reward to everyone: heaven. In paradise everybody will be filled with gifts, as much as they can hold. But if you compare them, some will contain more than others; the containers all have different capacities.

            What is going to happen with people becoming Christians at the end of their lives, Catholics going to confession after many years just before they died, babies dying just born, fetuses being aborted in their mother’s womb? We all agree that they should go to heaven, in spite of their brief or non existent Christian lives. What about the good thief who stole heaven at the last moment? Jesus promised him: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” We cannot limit God’s mercy, goodness and generosity. Precisely as Jesus asks us in the parable: “Are you envious because I am generous?”

            In the first reading from the book of Isaiah the Lord says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” How can we dare to pass judgment on the Lord? How can we try to fit God in our mind, to measure him with our imperfect and limited human standards? We cannot cage him in our small world. It is like trying to fit all the data of the servers in the cloud on a single floppy disk. The Lord continues: “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” We are a bit like babies trying to read the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas. We human beings see things with our eyes directed towards earth, only seeing the flat surface of the ground with no spatial perspective.

            Jesus finishes his parable saying: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” In heaven our society will be up side down: the poor will at the top and the multimillionaires will be the rubbish collectors, the famous and influencers will be forgotten and the real good deeds will come to the light. Imagine a race where this saying is fulfilled: everybody would run backwards. This is what we need to do: instead of running towards our own ego, we need to run towards God. We should be first in our love of God and last in our pride.

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Parable of the unforgiving servant

            The parable of the unforgiving servant is at the heart of the Gospel. It is an example for us to learn how to forgive and forget. We know by experience that it is not easy. Until we forgive the other person from the heart, we won’t be able to forget. If the grudge keeps coming back to our mind, it is a sign that we haven’t managed to forgive. It is only a desire, an intention, something we would like to do, but we don’t have the heart to do it. Jesus gave us this parable to learn how to find true forgiveness.

            This parable puts things into perspective in a very graphic way. The difference between what the servant has been forgiven and what he should forgive to his friend is colossal; it must have blown the minds of the listeners. For us it is difficult to grasp the ammount of money, because the Gospel uses the local currency of the time and we are not familiar with it. It is the difference between millions of dollars and few hundred dollars. It doesn’t make sense that the servant didn’t forgive the debt of his friend, specially just after a big debt was canceled. It is so ridiculous that it highlights the selfish attitude of the unforgiving servant, and at the same time our own pettiness.

            This parable helps us to understand a bit better the difference that exist between us and God. God forgives us everything, but we keep track of little petty things. When we go to God with our complaints, pointing out the offences we have suffered from our brothers and sisters, the first thing he asks is: “Do you want me to show my list? Do you really want to see it? It is so long that it is rolled up as a toilet paper. And I have a whole warehouse full of them.” Once we see how ridiculous our small list of grievances is, compared with the infinite list of our offences to God, we can forget about our little grudges and learn how to forgive.

            Once I saw a cartoon where God was displayed as an old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud, looking a bit sleepy. There was a small angel flying around asking God: “What do you do all the time? Aren’t you bored?” And God responded: “What do I do? I forgive.” This is what God does with us all the time. We are little children, being naughty, trying to push the boundaries, trying to get away with things. And God, who is a good loving Father, is always ready to forgive and forget. He says that once he forgives, he buries our sins in the deepest black hole in the universe, and they disappear from his eyes, sucked in by the dark matter. God’s delete button is for ever; you cannot retrieve the files from his hard disk. God doesn’t keep grudges and he doesn’t remember once he has forgiven us. He has a very short term memory. We need to learn from him if we are to be good sons and daughters of his. He loves when we make up with his children.

            If the unforgiving servant had forgiven the little debt of his friend, he would had become the forgiving servant, even though the parable would had disappeared. But It would had started a chain of forgiveness that would have reached down to our own time. We can start this chain ourselves, beginning to pray about the grudges we keep in our hearts and trying to heal them, comparing them with all the offences we have caused to our Father God, and learning from Him how to delete them from our minds.

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Fraternal correction

            Today Jesus talks to us in the Gospel about fraternal correction. We are all brothers and sisters in the faith and we need to help each other. Last week we saw Jesus correcting Peter. You could say that during his life with us he actually spent three years correcting his apostles, forming them, passing the Gospel on to them, preparing them for their mission. From a human perspective he didn’t do a good job: at the end only one followed him to the cross. One betrayed him, another denied him and the others ran away.

            The early Christians practiced fraternal correction; they corrected each other, they said things to each other face to face. They didn’t talk about others behind their backs. Others said of them: “See how they love one another.” People wanted to become Christians when they experienced their Christian charity. It is the best example we can give of our faith. We should love everybody, but specially our brothers and sisters in the faith. We want them to be better, to become closer to God.

            Both to correct and to be corrected is hard. Our pride gets in the way. It is important not to correct when we are upset or frustrated. It is going to lose its effect. We should correct when we are serene, out of love, thinking beforehand what we are going to say and how we are going to express ourselves. We should only do it when we are close to the person we want to help. It is a good remedy against gossiping or back biting. It is very rewarding to know that the people that love us are not going to stab us in the back. We can be very honest with them.

            We should be also open to correction ourselves. It is something you see in the Saints; they are very grateful when they are helped. It is not easy to be told about the mistakes we have made, but it is good for us, specially when it comes from people we know who love us. We should be grateful when our spouse, our parents, brothers and sisters, our friends, tells us things openly, face to face. I remember talking to the Managing Director of a company who was complaining: “Nobody corrects me, they are all afraid of me; they want to please me.” It happens to parish priests too. We all need to be told how can we change or improve. If nobody tells us how is it possible? Nobody is perfect. Some couples they have a moment every week when they can tell each other one thing they don’t like about the other spouse. This is what it means to be vulnerable.

            It is very difficult to get to know ourselves. It is one of the most difficult things, because we are always on the inside looking out. We cannot see ourselves from outside, only through a photo or a video. The first time you record your voice it sounds strange. We all want to take a selfie to see us through the eyes of others. Look at the Holy King David. God had to send Nathan the prophet to tell him of his sin: he took somebody else’s wife and put him in a position where he was certain to be killed in battle; he didn’t realize what he had done until Nathan told him. We normally place our imperfections behind us so as not to see them. We don’t like to be aware of them or to be reminded of them. We always put our good deeds in front of us. We always think that we are better than we are. They say it is a good business that buys people by their real price and sells them at the value they think they have. We all like putting people down to place ourselves above them. Fraternal correction helps us to correct these bad tendencies.

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Take up his Cross

            Last week Jesus told Peter that he was the rock on which he was going to build his Church. Today he calls him Satan. What happened? Last week Peter called Jesus the Christ, the anointed one; today he tries to discourage him from suffering and dying on the cross. Last week he was inspired by God; today he looks at things as we humans normally do. Jesus took advantage of this moment to talk about one of the most difficult paradoxes of our faith: to be happy we need to carry our cross. Nobody wants to hear about the cross, but Jesus is on the cross, and the cross is the symbol of our Christian life.

            How can we explain this? That the cross is a blessing. This idea goes against the basic core of our present society: that is, seek pleasure at any cost. People kill themselves with drugs or alcohol; they destroy their families committing adultery; they gamble their wealth away; they compromise their body, eating too much or consuming food not good for them; they risk their lives driving too fast; they harm their health working too hard and later on they spend their money trying to fix it. And all of this for the sake of pleasure. We all want to be happy, but many times we look for happiness in the wrong places.

            Saint John of the Cross once told his brother Francis a secret: “I will tell you something that happened to me with our Lord. We had a crucifix in the monastery, and one day, when I was standing before it, it seemed to me that it would be better placed in the church. I wanted it to be venerated not only by the friars but also by those outside. And I carried out this intention. When I had placed it in the church, I stood before it in prayer. Then Jesus said to me: ‘Brother John, ask me what you would like me to give to you for the service you have done to me.’ Then I said to him: Lord, I want from you sufferings which I might bear for you, and that I should be despised and accounted for nothing.” Not long afterwards he was taken prisoner against his will and locked in a small cell for nine months, with almost no food. From there we have the Saint we know.

            While we look for pleasurable things, saints look for the cross. Why? Because they know that God is trying to bless them with the cross. Saints want at any cost to do what God wants them to do. And sometimes the will of God is hard for us. Why? Because He wants us to grow, to mature, to conform ourselves to the image of Christ. Parents know that for their kids to become better, many times they have to suffer. Suffering goes with human life; it is part of human existence. Pain is the other side of the coin of love. Who loves you makes you suffer. It comes from original sin. We either accept it and love it, or we rebel and become bitter.

            Michael Angelo used to look at a block of marble and say: ‘I can see the statue inside; I am going to free it.’ Then he began to hit it with a hammer and a chisel. We are the same. The image of Christ is hidden in our nature. God can see it and He is trying to bring it out. But the process is painful. God has to chisel away many pieces that are not Jesus in our lives. Then he has to polish us and he normally uses people around us for his purposes. As long as we love the will of God, we let him do his work of sanctification.

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Upon this rock

            Jesus today in the Gospel is asking questions to his apostles: What do people say about me? There was a lot of gossip about who Jesus was. The apostles were keen to tell him all the conspiracy theories going around. Then Jesus confronted them asking a direct question: Who am I for you? They were all silent. It is a good question for all of us. Who is Jesus for me? What is the place of Jesus in my life? It is a question every human being should ask him or herself. The answer is important. It determines how we live our lives and eventually our future eternity. While the apostles ponder the question Peter answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The Holy Spirit answered the question through Peter for all of us: Jesus should be our priority, the centre of our lives, the apple of our eye. As Pope Benedict XVI used to say, Christianity is a not just a set of rules, but a relationship with a person who changes our lives.

            Answering the question, Peter shows his primacy and Jesus confirms it: you are the rock where I am going to build my Church. Jesus took advantage of this important question to establish his Church on solid foundations, on the rock of Peter. Without the Church, we cannot place Jesus at the centre of our lives. It is not possible to love Jesus and not to love the Church, because Jesus is her spouse. He left us his Church for us to have a beacon to follow, for us to have a straight path to heaven, a sure way not to go astray. We need to base our lives on Jesus, and he is seated on the cathedra of Saint Peter.

            Jesus changed Peter’s name from Simon to Cephas; it means stone in Aramaic. Peter comes from Petros in Greek and Petra in Latin, which means the same. The changing of the name was very important in the Old Testament: it was a way to determine the mission and role of a person. Jesus meant renaming Peter, to found his Church on solid ground: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the underworld will not prevail against it.” These words are written on a mosaic inside Saint Peter’s basilica, around the cupola, in big letters, three meters tall, for people to read them from the ground. And they have been fulfilled. After twenty centuries the Church is still alive and kicking. We constantly hear that the Church is finished, and we see how the boat of Saint Peter keeps weathering storms, while the enemies of the Church disappear.

            We call the Church One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Saint Pius X used to add another note: Persecuted. We complain when Christians suffer persecution and we should defend them against discrimination. But it is a good sign when the media criticise us: we are on the right path. Jesus warned us that, like him, we were going to suffer trials and tribulations. But we shouldn’t worry too much about it; the Church is build on solid ground. Jesus is watching us through the office of the Pope who is the Vicar of Christ, the visible Christ on earth, or like Saint Catherine of Siena used to say, the sweet Christ on earth.

            There is an old proverb in Latin that says: Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, ibi Deus. Where there is Peter, there is the Church, there is God. We want to be with Peter, because with him is the Church, with him is God; and without him, God is not there. We can be very good, but if we separate ourselves from Peter, from the Church, we will wither away. We have the experience of history. Today we can pray for the Pope, to lead us through these unprecedented times, and to feel on our shoulders a bit the weight of Church.

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The Assumption

            Today is a day of joy, of great celebration, with a big welcoming feast happening in eternity. At last Jesus brings his mother with him, body and soul, up to heaven. During his Ascension, he went up to heaven by his own power. Today he lends his rockets to his mother, for her to be able to be with him together for ever. Jesus couldn’t wait for her any longer. He loves her so much that when we were distracted, he took her from us. We understand him and we ask Jesus to help us to love our own mothers each day more and more, until one day, hopefully, we will be able to be with them in heaven, together again.

            The Assumption of our Mother to heaven is the last dogma approved by the Church, maybe because it is the last chapter of her life on earth. Pius XII solemnly defined this truth in 1950: “The Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, after her life on earth, was assumed, body and soul, to the glory of heaven.” He managed to mention in this short statement the other three Marian dogmas, Motherhood, Virginity and Immaculate Conception. In 1952 South Africa was the first country to declare Our Lady of the Assumption patroness of this land. The first Cathedral in Cape Town was dedicated to the Holy Family of the Flight into Egypt, to remember the first and the only time Jesus came to Africa. Today’s feast we could call it the flight to heaven, or the return of Mary to her heavenly home.

            There is great joy in heaven today, but for us it is a bit of a sad day. We are already missing her. We would have liked Jesus to leave his mother on earth with us. But we know that if Jesus is with us in the Eucharist, we can assume that she is there too, keeping company with her son, while we are oblivious of his presence. She is trying to remind us of her Son’s actual physical presence in the tabernacle. We miss her because Mary is our mother. We are very proud of her. We have two mothers, one earthly and another heavenly. We need them both, one for our natural life and the other for our spiritual one.

            God wanted his mother to be with him at the same time as Virgin and Mother. Only she can be both, to sanctify these two states of life, to be an example for all of us, married or celibate. Nowadays, both, virginity and motherhood, are being mocked, ridiculiced, deconstructed. Our society has a negative outlook of both these qualities of our Mother. They go together, for good or for bad. When we praise motherhood, virginity shines. And the other way around; when one is denigrated, the other flounders.

            Our Mother is waiting for us in heaven. Jesus went to prepare a place for us and Mary went to check it out. Mothers know what their children like, what sort of colours, music, or pictures we prefer. We can take the opportunity of this feast to fix our eyes in heaven, to even try to accompany her with our spirit. It is dangerous to see heaven; we certainly wouldn’t want to come back to earth, or we would try to die sooner. Saints who have been there, they cry when they come back. They are different people. I remember during the Sydney Olympic Games, there was a controversy about who were going to get the best places. I saw a sign outside a Protestant church saying: “Heaven. Good seats still available.” Both, Jesus and his Mother, are coming to pick us up, to take us to our place in the front row.

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Walking on water

            After a busy day, attending the crowd, healing the sick, comforting the troubled and feeding them, Jesus goes on to pray. While he dismisses the people, the apostles sail to the other side of the lake. None of his apostles accompany him. They wanted to get away from the crowd. They were very tired, and they knew Jesus was going to pray for the whole night. Jesus wanted to spend time alone with his Father God. We too; after a busy day, we need to pray to recover our serenity. Even though we are tired, we need to find the time to pray. The busier we are, the more we need to pray. In one of John Paul II trips to the Philippines, after a very busy day, the nuns went to the chapel at midnight to prepare the Mass for the following day, and they found the Pope praying, prostrated on the floor.

            From the top of the mountain Jesus sees the boat battling against the wind and the waves. He could see them well. It was full moon, close to the Pasch. These storms are normal on the lake, dangerous for fishing boats. The Fathers of the Church see in this boat an image of the Church, which is always battling against temptations, persecutions, heresies and infidelities. We often complain about the problems in the Church, but there have been always crisis, many times worse than the one we are going through now; and the Church always comes back alive. Jesus is always watching us from the mountain. He let the apostles struggle for a while. He does the same with us. It is good for us to go through difficulties and obstacles, for us to become stronger. It looks like he doesn’t care about us, but he is always watching over us.

            At the fourth watch, at three in the morning, Jesus came walking on the water of the lake. He is ready to help us whenever we need it. One author says that after praying, Jesus was so inflamed with love, that he didn’t realise he was walking on water. On the other hand I think he wanted to play a trick on them. It made a deep impression on them; all four evangelists mention this event. He looked like a ghost. The white tunic, illuminated by the moon, contrasted with the black background of the water. It must have been very scary. They all cried out; these big men were as afraid as little girls. He had to calm them: “It is I, don’t be afraid.” He always reminds us of this reality, whenever we are afraid: I am always with you. We cannot hide from God. We cannot find a place where God is not.

            Peter asked Jesus to walk on water: “If it is you.” He was still afraid, not trusting. “Come.” Peter jumped into the water. What did he feel on his feet? Was the surface soft? When he stopped looking at Jesus and realised he was walking on water, he began to sink. When we look at the wind, at the waves, the currents, the problems, the difficulties, we become pessimistic first and then we begin to sink, like Peter. We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, specially when we are walking on eggshells. This is what it takes to become a contemplative soul: to keep our eyes on the Lord. Where do I fix my eyes? What am I looking for?

            Peter cried out: “Lord, save me!” Jesus pulled him out, coming towards him and grasping him with his own hand. He could have commanded him to come out or jump. But he is always ready to pull us out of whatever muddy waters we find ourselves in. He complained: “Oh man of little faith why did you doubt?” How many times Jesus is telling us the same thing: I am with you always. Why don’t you trust me? I can do everything for you.

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