331. Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

Meditations no. 305 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

We sometimes have to go against the tide, like the Apostles on Lake Tiberias.

Jesus has performed a great miracle: with five loaves and two fishes, he has fed five thousand men, not counting women and children. Afterwards he tells the Apostles to go ahead of him to the other side of the lake while he dismisses the crowd. Then he went up into the hills to pray by himself. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was many furlongs distant from the land, beaten by the waves; for the wind was against them.

The Church sees this scene from our Lord’s life as a symbol of the Christian soul traversing the ocean of the world, very often against the current. The teachings and commandments which Christ has given the Church are very demanding, but with God’s grace they are achievable and enlightening. If they are not readily accepted by everybody, it is because of the resistance born of sin, shown in the human mind’s natural difficulty in understanding truths of the supernatural order, and in the human will’s inability to tend towards any good which requires sacrifice.

Our Lord’s doctrine is and always will be a sign of contradiction. Have no doubt about it, and instil it in others too, our Father wrote: as Christians we have to navigate against the current. Don’t be under any illusions. Reflect carefully: Jesus himself had to go against the current; so too did Peter and his companions, and all those who, throughout the centuries, have wished to be constant disciples of the Master. Be firmly convinced, therefore, that it is not Jesus’ doctrine that has to adapt itself to the times, but it is the times that have to open themselves to the light of the Saviour.

The Apostles struggle against the wind, but their efforts seem useless, and the boat lurches around, tossed by the waves. Jesus wants them to grow strong through adversity, but he doesn’t leave them on their own. In the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.

I am moved, my beloved sons and daughters, our Father wrote, to contemplate Jesus making use of his divine power and working a prodigious miracle like this to go and meet his disciples. They were exhausted from rowing the boat against the wind, as they tried to return to the place he told them.

We too are obeying an imperative command from Christ. We are sailing on a sea stirred up by men’s passions and errors, and sometimes feel our own weakness keenly, but we are still firmly determined to reach the port with this ship of salvation which our Lord has entrusted to us. Perhaps, with the force of the gale against us, we sometimes hear within ourselves the voice of our own powerlessness: Be gracious to me, O God, for men trample upon me; all day long foemen oppress me; my enemies trample upon me all day long, for many fight against me proudly. He doesn’t abandon us, and whenever it has proved necessary he has reached out to us with his all-powerful love and filled the hearts of his children with peace and confidence. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; have no fear.” And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.

The circumstances have changed, but Christ’s demand is the same now as when the Apostles first began to preach. Moreover, we have to be forewarned against those who try to deform the faith under the guise of adapting it to present-day mentalities. We have to remain faithful to our Lord: this fidelity of ours, with God’s grace, will attract the multitude of those who seek him even without knowing him.

We have to re-Christianize the society in which we live.

My children, our Father wrote some years ago, you know that I love the Church of God with all my heart. If I love each of you so much, it is for the Church’s sake. You know - I know that I don’t need to remind you of this, but I do like to mention it whenever I can -that I love the Pope with all my heart, both the present one and those who will come after him. So much so that I would sooner tear out my tongue than speak just one word of criticism, one judgement lacking in love. But we all have experience of elements that are publicly visible, which can be touched, which can be heard, which stink of corruption, which are disgusting to taste. These elements, which can be detected by all the senses, we should indeed judge; and I have a special duty to do so, my daughters and sons, since I have the responsibility of leading my pusillus grex, my little flock, towards salvation, making you happy on this earth too. It means struggling, my children, struggling, as we already know, but struggling above all for heaven, for paradise.

When the Church lays down certain prescriptions, whether on a temporary or a permanent basis, and leaves various options open, it is right for me, within the limits of my internal universal jurisdiction, to seek good grazing for my flock, where no harmful weeds are to be found, so that the sheep are strong and happy.

I was recently telling your older brothers, remembering that we have so often spoken of boats and nets, that there is a lot of talk and writing now in all sorts of places about ecology. And samples are taken, in rivers and lakes, and in all the seas, and analyzed… Almost always the result is that things are in a bad way: the fish don’t have healthy, habitable surroundings.

When we have spoken about boats and nets, you and I were always referring to Christ’s nets, and Peter’s boat, and to souls. Not for nothing did our Lord say: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Well, it might happen that some of those fish, of those men, seeing what is happening the world over and within the Church of God, faced with this sea which seems to be covered in filth, and these rivers filled with repugnant-looking slime, in which they find neither food nor oxygen; if such fish could think - and we are talking of fish that do think, because they have a soul - it might occur to them to decide: “That’s enough - I’ll take a leap, and get out! There’s no point in living this way. I’m going to find refuge on the bank, and there I’ll take a few mouthfuls of air, and breathe a bit of oxygen. I’ve had enough!”

No, my children. We have to continue in the midst of this putrid world, in the midst of this sea of turbid waters; in the midst of these rivers that pass through great cities and tiny hamlets, and whose waters no longer have the power to fortify the body, or relieve thirst, because they’re poisonous. My children, it’s in the middle of the street, in the middle of this world that we must always be, striving to form around us a peaceful pool of clean waters, so that other fish can come there, and among us all we can be extending this pool, purifying the river, restoring goodness to the waters of the sea.

Optimism and trust in divine providence.

The Apostles were filled with fear when they saw Jesus walking on the water: they didn’t recognize him and thought they were seeing a ghost. When Jesus put them at their ease - it is I; have no fear - Simon Peter said to him: “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. We marvel at Peter’s faith and his unhesitating trust in our Lord. His confidence, though, didn’t last very long: When he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”

In the face of storms, the difficulties of our own interior life or the apostolate, our Father reminds us: don’t ever give in to discouragement Take heart, my children! Swim against the current How? With an invocation to our Blessed Lady, to the motherly, most Pure Heart of Mary: Sancta Maria, refugium nostrum et virtus: you are our refuge and our strength! Be calm. We don’t wish to abandon the world. We don’t wish to shorten the days, even though they may appear very long, and even though we see that those who could purify the waters don’t do so, but instead contribute to contaminating the rivers, releasing so much toxic material into the great oceans that they cannot be purified.

My children, I’m not speaking to the walls. I am speaking to my daughters and sons. I am speaking to fish who can swim in all conditions, whether the current is in their favour or against them. I am speaking to souls who are able to love, who have received God’s call, who are not prepared just to say yes themselves, but who try, with all their heart, as long as they live - duc in altum!… in verbo autem tuo laxabo rete: put out into the deep… at your word I will let down the net - who try to be both fish and fishermen, without leaving the waters, doing what each of them can to purify their own surroundings and the whole world.

This, my children, is what I often ask for from God, in your name and in my own: that this world which he made, and which we human beings are soiling, may return to being what it was when it came forth from his hands: beautiful, unsoiled, an anteroom of heaven.

Let nobody think of trying to leave the water. Anybody who did would be a coward and would be lacking faith in divine Providence. One can understand that, when dogma wavers, when morals are lax and unrestrained, when government lacks authority, when law lacks certainty… in those conditions one can understand that there could be the temptation to leap out from the dirty water of the world to the grass on the bank. But you know already what God wants of us: each of us has to be a pool of clear water. All together, we have to try to join those pools together, to bring other fish to work beside us. And we will purify the world and we will save souls.

A huge task is awaiting us, my children. I like to remind you that our Lord doesn’t need any of us, and yet he needs us all. And so we have to ask him - really ask him! - to make us very faithful and persevering in the apostolate. We are surrounded by many good people, and we each have to try not to let ourselves be swept along by the current or get left behind: we cannot let those souls down, because that would mean letting God down.

We finish as we always do: if we are going to make headway against the current, we have to pray, to be men and women of faith, who work conscientiously and with hope. Sancta Maria, refugium nostrum et virtus! (Holy Mary, our refuge and our strength!) In our Mother we always find rest and strength.