🙏 SUNDAY INSIGHTS - 12TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 🙏

First Reading - Job 38:1,8-11 

Second Reading - 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 

Gospel - Mark 4:35-41

Linda Sledge (she is a Chinese- American author) recalls a day from her childhood that she will never forget. She was playing in the sand of a Hawaiian beach near where she lived, building towers with her red shovel and bucket. She had wandered away from her parents. Suddenly a great wave knocked her off her feet into the ocean. She managed to get up on her feet, but the sand was flowing out from under her feet. Then another wave struck, and she had no footing. She cried out for her parents. All she could see was the vast ocean ahead. She thought she was doomed. Just then two strong arms reached out from behind and pulled her to safety. “Don’t be afraid,” her father said. “I’ve been watching you all the time.” Those are Christ’s words to us. He is not sleeping. He is watching over us. Why are we afraid? Have we no Faith? The role of God in calming the storms of life both in the history of the Church and in the lives of Christians is the central theme of the readings for this Storm Sunday.

In the first reading, God addresses Job for the first time, questioning his right to challenge God’s authority and leading Job deeper and deeper into the mystery of creation. We hear how the Lord speaks to Job whose life was devastated by storms of the total loss of his possessions, the deaths of his dear ones, and a whole-body disease that left him in misery. “Out of the storm,” God reminds Job that He is in control.

Today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 107) picks up the storm theme and tells us how the Lord saves the sailors caught up in the high waves of a tempest by first “raising up a storm wind,” then “hushing the storm to a gentle breeze.” “They who sailed the sea in ships … saw the works of the Lord and His wonders in the abyss.”  

Paul, who “rode out the storm” of rejection by his former friends, also experienced storms of violent hostility from the Jews, his brothers and sisters in God’ Chosen People, who refused to believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah. So, he explains in the second reading that Jesus died for us to make us a “new creation.” In order to receive this gift of love, we have to respond, living for Jesus in all situations of our lives because Jesus has gone before us through the uncharted sea of life. 

In today’s Gospel, Mark assures first-century believers that nothing can harm the Church as long as the risen Lord is with them. He describes how, by a single commanding word, Jesus stilled a storm on the Sea of Galilee, returned the sea to its natural order, and saved the apostles from drowning. The incident reminds us that Jesus, resting in our life’s boat, is always ready to help us in the storms of life, when we ask. 

Dear friends, we need to remember that Jesus is always with us in the boat of our life. We all experience different types of violent storms in our lives: physical storms, emotional storms, and spiritual storms. We face storms of sorrow, doubt, anxiety, worry, temptation, and passion. Only Jesus can still these storms. Jesus can give us real peace in the storm of sorrow. 

When we are totally depressed with sorrow Jesus assures us of the glory of the life to come. He consoles us at the loss of our dear ones with the assurance of eternal life for them in the Heavenly home of God the Father where we, too, will live one day. 

When the storms of doubt seek to uproot the very foundations of our Faith, Jesus is there to still that storm, revealing to us His Divinity and the authority behind the words of the Holy Scripture. 

If we will ask, and respond with loving trust and obedience, Jesus will give us peace in our tempests of doubt, tension, and uncertainty, peace in our storms of anxiety and worry about ourselves, peace about the unknown future, peace about those we love, and calm in the storms of passion when our hearts grow hot and our tempers blaze.