January 9
The life is a miracle
Then he made his disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was far out on the sea and he was alone on shore. Then he saw that they were tossed about while rowing, for the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out. They had all seen him and were terrified. But at once he spoke with them, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!” He got into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were (completely) astounded. They had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened.Mk 6,45-52
The disciples – the Gospel of Mark says – were amazed by the end of their experience of the stormy sea of Jesus which walks on the waters, of the wind which suddenly calms down and of the sea which returns to be calm as being made by oil. We have no problems in believing it! The evangelist, however, concludes this narration with a personal comment on the reason of their amazement “because they did not understand the event of the breads: their heart was hardened”. Is it ever possible – we could think – that the difficulty of the disciples to deeply understand the miracle of the multiplication of the breads is connected with that storm? This is a subject which is good to deepen to try to catch the spiritual dynamics of that event and, by the same time, of those difficulties which occur also to us in the everyday life. By extrapolating the thinking of Mark and having it routed in an exhortation for us, the gospel seems to tell us: “ Be careful, because, if you do not catch the sense of the miracle in your life, you will have to face several problems”. If we go, then, to search among the events of the past time, we have to recognize that when our faith has been able to understand that our life is a continuous miracle, the negative events, which are always there as an ambush, have been exorcized and we walked quietly over the restless waters of this world. When, on the contrary, our faith has been weak, sometime we were close to sink and we started to yell: “Lord, save us!” We have searched, by the prayer, the logic of this spiritual dynamics and the Spirit gave us this explanation: “To be faithful persons and to understand that the life is a continuous miracle it is the consequence of living by following the Lord, who walked in the streets of this world avoiding that the strengths of the evil were able to get power over him, up to when his destiny materialized. Also today, the person who lives following him enjoys of the same protections up to his end. When the time will be over, the protections will cease and the strengths of the evil will obtain the ephemeral victory of the death of the body. After, it will be an entire glory”.