Pope Benedict XVI Speaks about Faith

8-12-17

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Good Morning,

 Some wonderful words from Pope Benedict XVI  I found in Give Us This Day --- titled:

The Storm and Our Faith

"The sea symbolizes this life and the instability of the visible world; the storm points to every kind of trial ir difficulty that oppresses human beings. The boat, instead, represents the Church, built by Christ and steered by the Apostles. 

Jesus wanted to teach the disciples to bear life's adversities courageously, trusting in God, in the One who revealed himself to the Prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb in a still small voice [the whispering of a gentle breeze] (1 Kings 19:12)....

Saint Augustine, imagining that he was addressing the Apostle, commented: 'The Lord leaned down and took you by the hand. With your strength alone you cannot rise. Hold tight to the hand of the One who reaches down to you,' and he did not say this to Peter alone but also to us.

Peter walks on the water, not by his own effort but rather through divine grace, in which he believes. And when he was smitten by doubt, when he no longer fixed his gaze on Jesus but was frightened by the gale, when he failed to put full trust in the Teacher's words, it means that he was interiorly distancing himself from the Teacher and so risked sinking in the sea of life. 

So it is also for us: if  we LOOK ONLY AT OURSELVES we become dependent on the winds and can no longer pass through storms on the waters of life. The great thinker Romano Guardini wrote that the Lord  'is always close, being the root of our being. Yet we must experience our relationship with God between the poles of distance and closeness. By closeness we are strengthened, by distance we are put to the test.'

Dear friends .... the troubled faith of the Apostle Peter enables us to understand that even before we seek the Lord or invoke him, it is he himself who comes to meet us, who lowers heaven to stretch out his hand to us and RAISE US  to His heights; all he expects of us is that we TRUST in Him, that we really take HOLD OF HIS HAND---- worth repeating .... THAT WE REALLY, REALLY TAKE HOLD OF HIS HAND!!

Let us call on the Vurgin Mary, model of total entrustment to God, so that amidst the plethora of anxieties, problems, and difficulties which churn up the sea of our life, our hearts may resonate with the reassuring words of Jesus who also says to us, Take heart, it is I; have no fear; and may your Faith

in Him grow." 

Peace,

Grandpazach