By Dr. Jeff Spiess, Senior Warden
Much of humanity shares a common grief, a bewilderment, with the death of Pope Francis. For many of us, Francis was a voice of conviction and compassion in a world swarming with avarice, injustice, and cruelty. A common concern, and not only among Roman Catholics, centers on the uncertainty of what happens next. We await the upcoming Conclave as far as the identification of the next Bishop of Rome, but for now, we have memories and reassurance from this good and faithful servant of God. I do not know just when he gave the meditation that follows, but it sounds as if it could have been written just yesterday.
When evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:35-39)
“When evening had come.” The gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets & our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence & a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid & lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel, we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile & disoriented, but at the same time important & needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat…are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying, “We are perishing”, so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Faith begins when we realize we are in need of salvation. We are not self-sufficient; by ourselves we flounder; we need the Lord, like ancient navigators needed the stars. Let us invite Jesus into the boats of our lives. Let us hand over our fears to him so that he can conquer them. Like the disciples, we will experience that with him on board there will be no shipwreck. Because this is God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies.