Daily Gospel Reflection – Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Gospel: Mc 4:35-41
Daily Gospel Reflection – Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Gospel: Mc 4:35-41
June 20, 2021
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mc 4:35-41
On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples:
“Let us cross to the other side.”
Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was.
And other boats were with him.
A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat,
so that it was already filling up.
Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.
They woke him and said to him,
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
He woke up,
rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!”
The wind ceased and there was great calm.
Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”
They were filled with great awe and said to one another,
“Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”
Source: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, the story at the heart of our Gospel for today is the storm at sea. Karl Barth said that the stormy waters in all of these cases stands for das Nichtige, "the nothing," that which stands opposed to God’s creative intentions, difficulties both interior and exterior, difficulties physical, psychological, and spiritual.
The disciples in the boat are, as I’ve often said, evocative of the Church, making its way through time and space. And those waters are symbolic of everything that besets the members of the Church. To stay within the emotional space of the story, this must have been a terrible storm, to have terrified experienced sailors. This is no small problem, no minor difficulty.
Do you know the de profundis prayer? It comes from Psalm 130: "Out of the depths, I call to you, Lord. Lord, hear my cry!" It is the prayer we should offer at the darkest times of life, when we find ourselves lost and in the shadow of death, when, in our desperation, we feel utterly incapable of helping ourselves.
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