Gospel Reflection- 08/03/2021

Today, society and the church find itself in the shoes of Saint Peter and the disciples. Jesus is continuously calling out to us “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” But we often have a tendency to not listen, or to take our eyes off Christ. Saint Peter begins to doubt Jesus when the waters become choppy, he takes his eyes off Jesus and begins to sink. The lack of courage and faith should be familiar to a lot of us today.

COVID-19 has taught us that we as a society have taken our eyes off Jesus. The waves of life have become choppy and instead of focusing ahead, we allow ourselves to sink. We allow ourselves to become fearful, distant, and unable to see past the immediate future. We have allowed ourselves to fear death, to fear being brought home to heaven and coming face to face with the risen Christ.

Within the church, what is supposed to be the faithful body of Christ, we’ve shown how easily we can take our eyes off him. The church has historically been through many choppy days on the water. The waves being the few bad eggs who have found themselves caught up in the sexual abuse crisis. Why are we letting those few and far inbetween take our eyes off Christ? We are allowing our own faith to be impacted because we begin to doubt.

As Jesus in today’s gospel tells Peter “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” We must now turn towards our father in prayer. Pull ourselves away to our mountain. To refocus and recenter our attention on the one thing that really matters. Allow Jesus to come into your heart, are you afraid he’s going to tell you what he told Saint Peter? “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Don’t let another day go by without encountering Jesus, his mercy extends to all of you, you just have to go to him and not take your eyes off of him. For even in the storm, Jesus doesn’t want you to be afraid.

God Bless,
Jonathan

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