Good morning/evening every one. I am so happy to welcome you all to today’s Holy Mass. Our special welcome to all our summer parishioners, cottagers, visitors and every one who is here today. I would also thank you all for coming out today to celebrate Christ. Dear friends, every time tough we come to Jesus with our fears and anxieties, He blesses us with love and kindness; though we come to Him with doubts and questions, He blesses us with faith and hope and though we come to Him with empty-handed, He fills us with unending joy and happiness.
One day a man sent a mail to his friend who was living outside of the county and wrote, “your cat is dead”. The man replied him saying, “You should know how to deliver bad news tactfully. You should first say, “your cat is acting out” then you might say “your cat is missing” and then finally “you should say that your cat is dead”. And a month later the man sent a mail saying, “Your mom is acting out”.
One day man’s house was on fire, so he ran up to his roof for safety. Then all his friends came standing in the street below holding a stretched-out blanket for him shouting, “jump…jump” The man said, “No, I do not trust you. If I jump, you will pull the blanket away to make a fool of me”. They said, “no, we will not. It is serious, please jump”. The man then said, ‘I do not trust you. Lay the blanket on the ground and I will jump”.
What is faith? Faith is complete trust in some one or something. To St. Thomas who doubted the resurrection, Christ our Lord said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.
When we talk about faith, the first person who comes into our mind is Abraham the father of faith. He was called by God at the age of seventy-five to leave behind everything and follow Him. Abraham without hesitation followed God. As God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac for him, He without any hesitation followed the will of God. Because of his faith, God abundantly blessed him, was filled with wisdom and understanding and thus he achieved enlightenment in God almighty. The difference between knowledge and enlightenment is when we have knowledge we use a torch to show the way and when we are enlightened, we become a torch. But Abraham too doubted, questioned and struggled with his faith.
We all know the story of Job the pious man who worshiped God five times a day and kept all God’s commandments. But when Job was older and was approaching his end, his faith was tested. He began to lose one by one everything that he had. Job who was a faithful man never cursed God instead he said, “I trust in God. Naked I came into this world and naked I shall return”. But Job too doubted, questioned and struggled with his faith.
One day a farmer forgot to take his prayer book with him. He said to God, ‘dear God, without my prayer book, I cannot recite any prayer. So now I am going to recite very slowly the alphabet five times and you who knows everything put the letters together and make a prayer’. That night God called all his angels and said, ‘today of all prayers I heard, this is the best prayer because he is a very faithful man and it came from his simple and sincere heart’.
All the apostles were called to follow the Lord in their older age. Though they were older, their faith was not stronger. They too doubted, questioned and struggled with their faith. In today’s gospel, Jesus who asked Simon Peter to walk on the water, says, “you of little faith, why did you doubt”.
But as they doubted, questioned and struggled with their faith, their search to find meaning continued, they struggled to find God continued and because of their unceasing faith, they did find God.
Dear friends, today when you see your children, grandchildren, friends and others do not practice their faith, you doubt, question and struggle with your faith and you begin to drown in doubt, there if we cry out to Jesus saying, “Jesus, save me… He will hold our hands tight and say, ‘you of little faith, why do you doubt. Trust in me and they will change. Walking on water happens when we have complete faith in Christ, we do need to change others but all we have to do is increasing our faith in Christ and everything will change automatically. Amen.
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