Dedication of the Basilicas of Sts. Peter and Paul in Rome (optional readings)
Acts 28:11-16, 30-31; Matthew 14:22-33
In the wee hours of a morning, the blaring of a smoke alarm shattered the silence and just in time roused a family to the shock that their home was engulfed in flames. With no time to save anything but themselves, they raced downstairs and out into the darkness. Still breathing hard, Dad counted heads: “Bill, Anne, Mary, Eddie — where's Eddie?”
At that very moment five-year-old Eddie cried out from an upstairs window, “Mom! Dad! Where are you?”
It was too late to go back inside — the house was an inferno — so Dad shouted, “Jump, Eddie, I'll catch you!”
Between sobs the boy cried out, “But I can't see you, Daddy!”
Dad answered calmly, “I know you can't see me, son, but I can see you. Jump!”
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Then the boy jumped into the smokey darkness and found himself safe in his father's arms.
+ + +
We are that little boy, every one of us, every day: Caught in the dark, needing and wanting to jump, but unable to see where we'll land, and feeling alone and afraid. We are Peter too, wanting to walk on water to Jesus, but faltering and sinking.
“Fear is useless,” Jesus said so many times. “What's needed is faith.” Quite right, but the faith He's talking about isn't what many of us think it is. It isn't about theological abstractions. It's about entrusting our selves into God's hands because we know He loves us even more that we love ourselves.
But even if we get that clear, we can still get off track by thinking that if we trust God, somehow God will insulate us from failure and pain. That's not the promise. God's promise to those who trust Him is this: He'll give us the strength to face whatever troubles come, and He'll never let us be destroyed by them, even if we die.
But faith has still another side, and it concerns the talents and gifts that God gave us because He had faith in us. Peter lost faith in God's gifts to him and expected God to just fix things. He sank! Trusting God also means trusting His gifts. And trusting His gifts means using them.
There's an old saying: Work as if everything depended on you, and pray as if everything depended in God. That's right on the mark, but it's not that easy to do, because we can't see God, and too often we can't see our gifts. It may help to recall the words scribbled more than 50 years ago on a wall in the Warsaw ghetto:
I believe in the sun, even if it does not shine.
I believe in love, even if I do not feel it.
I believe in God, even if I do not see Him.
Trust God, and trust His gifts to you. That means using your gifts. So, jump! And never look back!
