Mt.14: 22-33
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French emperor and adorned as a great military general and conqueror of all the time. There was no glory that he did not receive during his lifetime. The huge portion of Europe was under his control and he grew as an emperor who could change the destiny of the entire world. Once, his military generals asked him a question: Which is the most memorable day of his life. They expected an answer that he would tell them that it would the day he was crowned as the emperor or the day in which he achieved a great victory or the day of his royal wedding etc. After all, his answer was quite surprising. He told them that the day he received the Holy Communion for the first time as a small boy after a series of spiritual preparations by his mother was the most memorable day of his life. A great warrior and leader of all time could recall his First Holy Communion day as the most remarkable day because of the extraordinary God experience that he had on that day…
The Word of God brings to us the God experience of men and women from down through the centuries. It begins with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua… It is our encounter with God that marks our faith journey. That could be one of the reasons faith levels vary from person to person. None of us can demand experience from God. There is no doubt it is a gratuitous gift. However, we can earnestly desire for a God experience and God will bless us to experience Him in his unique way…
Today’s gospel speaks to us about the God experience of St. Peter. Peter was very humane and sincere. He did not have a double face; he presents himself to Jesus as he is. He requests Jesus to grant him the grace to walk on the water. Jesus hears his plea and allowing him to walk on the water; anyhow, overcame by the fear; he loses the sight of Jesus and starts sinking.
As long as his focus was on Jesus, he could walk on the water. It was a miracle because it is impossible for an ordinary human being to walk on the water. We see Jesus walks on the water. He could do this supernatural deed because of his divine power over the entire cosmos. The moment He sinks, he cries for help: “Lord save me.” His life was a celebration of God’s unconditional love and grace. This grace of unfailing faithfulness of Christ inspires him to get back to his focus and rely on God’s grace than depending on his strength.
We too might have God-experience like that of St. Peter. When our focus was on Jesus, we might have fulfilled difficult tasks, at times tasks that seem to be impossible. If we are not able to carry out the tasks with our initial enthusiasm, be sure that we have lost our focus, we have lost the sight of Jesus. At this juncture, we need to humble ourselves and cry out to Jesus to save us. As we meditate this Word, let us remember and pray for all our brethren, who lost the focus on Jesus and struggling with their faith life. Their situation can be just like Peter struggling to believe in Jesus and also not ready to rely on God’s grace. It can happen to all of us that we might had a God-experience in the past but never nurtured it or not passionate about it and never showed any interest to get rooted in this God-experience. Like Peter let us surrender ourselves to Jesus that he may extend his saving grace to us that we may live in the conscious awareness of our God experience and always long for more and more experience of the divine…