By Romanian Patriarch Daniel Homily for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost Three main teachings emerge from today’s Gospel – Matt. 14:22-34: 1. By withdrawing…
By Romanian Patriarch Daniel
Homily for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost
Three main teachings emerge from today’s Gospel – Matt. 14:22-34:
1. By withdrawing to pray, Christ transforms physical solitude into spiritual communion with God.
2. Jesus leaves the disciples alone to fight the storm at sea, so that they understand how necessary God’s help is for man in difficult situations
3. The ship engulfed in the storm at sea represents Christ’s Church in a hostile world.
Christ withdraws to pray alone to teach us to thank God for every achievement in our lives. He prays alone so that he will not be praised by the multitude that he fed by multiplying the loaves and fishes.
Every good deed must be attributed to the help received from God
Through prayer, human loneliness is transformed into communion with God. The praying person, even if he lives isolated in the desert, is not alone, but together with God and all His saints. The praying person, even if he is in solitude, is not a loner. However, a person who no longer prays to God, even if he is in the midst of a crowd, becomes a spiritual loner.
The spiritual “test” of the disciples is their struggle with the trials of life and their mission
Christ sends the disciples to the sea to teach them to struggle alone, and not to wait for everything to be ready, without a struggle. He wanted to teach them to overcome obstacles, to understand how necessary the blessing of God’s help is in their lives.
Christ leaves them to struggle at night with the sea storm, to understand that sometimes they cannot rely only on their own strength and skill, even though they are experienced fishermen.
Fourth watch: the time between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. (sunrise).
The words of the apostle Peter: “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water” (Matt. 14:28) mean that the apostle confesses that Jesus is the Lord of the elements.
St. Peter’s request to walk on the sea testifies to gratitude and respect for Jesus
St. Peter, going to Christ, shows respect and gratitude for Him, rejoices in the Guest. He shows humility and obedience to the Lord and the other disciples.
Firm faith in Jesus Christ overcomes the difficulties of life’s trials
While St. Peter looked only at Jesus, he walked on the water like Him. However, when he looked at the wind and became afraid, he began to waver in his strength and sink into the water.
The ship in the stormy sea is a symbol of the militant Church in the world
The ship represents the Church in the trials of the waves or storms of history, persecutions, heresies, dark forces against her. The ship of the Gospel also means the Church, which is in the stormy world of sins, of individual or collective selfish passions.
At the same time, the Gospel shows us how the Christian soul should resist in times of trial. Some holy fathers (St. John Chrysostom) consider the ship, tossed by waves, as an image of the believing human soul in the struggle with life’s trials and disturbing passions. But if the Lord is called upon in prayer to come to his aid, He will calm the storm of selfish passions, of troubles and sufferings that disturb man. Today’s Gospel speaks of trials and encouragement, of struggle and victory. It shows us that getting out of difficult situations is not due to our own strength, but first of all to divine help. No matter how skilled or experienced sailors and fishermen Christ’s disciples are, no matter how good swimmers they are, they would not have been saved from the sea storm by their own strength alone and without Jesus’ help.
In the same way, no matter how many and worthy ministers the Church has, they alone cannot save Christ’s Church in its struggle with sin, with evil spirits, with the storms of persecution and heresies, with the waves of unbelief, secularization or spiritual indifference, but only with Christ’s help.
The main lesson that the Master Christ teaches His disciples, and through them to all of us, using the ship as a chair for the theology of salvation, is this: all the trials and tribulations that we encounter in life can be overcome if we do not rely only on our own strength, but first trust in God’s help.
May the Most Merciful God help us to learn from this gospel that Christ the Lord loves us, even if he sometimes leaves us in great trials that we do not understand when we are in the midst of them, but only later. Although He sometimes seems far away or even absent, Christ the Lord still knows that we need His help and expects us to go to Him, because He also constantly comes to us.
Source in Romanian: Daniel Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Evangelia slavei lui Hristos. Predici la Duminicile de peste an, București, 2023, p. 164-173.
