12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mark 4:35-41
Homily for 25 June 2006
Fr. Frank Baiocchi

A mother with five little children decided that summer should begin with planting a backyard garden. So she took her kids to the local garden nursery where, for the next two hours, they argued about who gets to push the shopping cart, they insisted on viewing every single plant in the huge greenhouse, they cried very hard when there were no pink petunias left and they broke a large, expensive pot. Home at last, she complained to her husband who had been cleaning out the garage, “All I want is some peace and quiet and some beautiful flowers.” “My dear,” her husband replied gently, “…peace and quiet and some beautiful flowers? I believe that’s called a funeral!”

For those of us who aren’t quite ready for a funeral, peace and quiet and beautiful flowers are seldom on our agenda. What is on the agenda for us all, young and old, is a steady flow of new things we haven’t had to face before. For the younger among us, the story goes like this: I’ve never been a little kid before. I’ve never gone to school before, or stayed home alone before or gone to sleep without a night-light before. For others among us, the story goes like this: I haven’t had to look for and work a job before, or been completely on my own before, or put a workable budget together before, or had to share my honest feelings before. And for the older people in our midst, the story goes like this: I haven’t been this old and wrinkled before, or gotten cancer before, or been so forgetful before or been widowed and alone before.

Yes, there are lots of stories going on in our lives. We all have stories and for each of us the story keeps changing. But the big question remains the same: as the next door opens and we come face to face with the newest challenge, the newest “storm” in our lives, do we freeze up in fearful anxiety and pull back, or do we walk confidently through the door and come to grips with whatever we find there?

We all know that our life journey can be difficult and scary. No matter how young, no matter how old, there’s always a storm rocking our boat! The question is: when the storm comes, do we let fear and anxiety take over and control our lives, or not? The answer depends upon our relationship with Jesus. Remember that Jesus is in the same boat with us. Remember in today’s Gospel reading the disciples thought Jesus was asleep, and that a sleeping Jesus was not a good thing while a storm is raging wildly across their Galilean Sea. Some of these storms were notoriously vicious and unpredictable, even to seasoned fishermen! We 21st century disciples of Jesus sometimes get the same feeling, don’t we, that Jesus is asleep at the helm and is unable or unwilling to help us out. We seem to be alone. We seem to face the danger alone. But we are as wrong as the disciples in today’s Gospel. Jesus is not asleep. Jesus is with us when our boat starts rocking in the wind and waves. Believe this.

We need to embrace what remains of today and what remains of our lives with a serene confidence. We need to be rooted in the certain knowledge that Jesus is in our boat through each and every storm in our lives, yesterday’s storms, today’s storms and tomorrow’s as well. There is no situation, no storm too strong for us when we’re in the same boat with Jesus! That’s today’s lesson from the “Good News” of Jesus’ Gospel!