We live in stormy times.  For as long as I can remember the Church has been going through one storm after another.  The seas of the world have not been calm for very long at any given stretch.  From the time when I was a child the Church went through the changes called for by the Vatican Council.  About that time the sexual revolution hit full tilt and brought with it the feminist movement and the Church had to fight through the storm of many priests and religious wanting to be liberated from their solemn vows and pursue alternate lifestyles.  Divorce began to increase in our society and families started to break down.  Contraception became readily available and the Church had to fight through the new storms wrought by a contraceptive mentality.  In the mid-seventies abortion came on the scene and began to cut through the culture of life and left its cold touch of death on many souls.  New age philosophies began to challenge the traditional truths of faith and offer easy spirituality and feel-good religion.  Our society fell more and more in love with itself and the individual became king as narcissism and personal freedoms began to cut at our community spirit.  In the mid-eighties the Church began to fall under the shadow of accusations of sexual abuse among the clergy and religious and doubt was cast upon the leadership of the Church.  Billions of dollars of the Church’s patrimony was paid out to lawyers and victims.  Homosexuality spread through our society as well as the Church’s seminaries, houses of  formation and religious communities.  The shadow side of the sexual revolution began to be more apparent as sexually transmitted diseases spread through our society at an alarming rate.  In the nineties we all got on-line and the internet connected people and information but also brought with it the scourge of readily available pornography and children lost their innocence as they were introduced to sexually explicit material at an earlier and earlier age, even themselves becoming the victims of sexual trafficking.  The new millennium brought new threats with terrorism reaching deep into our national security and immigration became increasingly difficult.  New wars were engaged and fought and the world became a more volatile place.  The economy began to destabilize and we fell into an economic crisis around the world.  Marriage began to be assailed with homosexual persons demanding the right to marry.  The storms just rage on and on.

     It is not a pretty picture and the storms can easily erode our sense of faith and trust in the love and mercy of God.  It is easy to see how the disciples in the boat can begin to question our Lord as they do in our gospel today, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  Confronted with the powerful forces of storms and the chaos that they bring it is easy to fall into a persistent fear that eats away at our sense of faith and trust.

     The boat that we see in our gospel today is certainly a symbol of the Church, the barque of Peter, that is constantly being tossed about on the seas of change.  The storm that assails the small boat seems to be so much larger and more powerful than the simple fishing vessel that is our only protection.  However, what we must realize and what is always true for the Church is that Jesus is in the boat with us and we do not need to fear ultimate destruction.  Even the wind and the sea obey him and are subject to his commands.  Jesus is not going to do everything for us.  Sometimes he might be resting and letting us handle the situation on our own for awhile.  This is the way that we learn and that we test our faith to see if we do not yet have faith.  We even at times might feel that we are being pushed to our limits but if we have faith and trust in God then we know that he will not allow the storm to destroy us.  As Job learned from God he sets limits for the sea and the storm.  God also sets limits to the trials that we face and we must believe that ultimately we will prevail in the end.  The storm will pass and peace will come again to our little part of the sea.  The love of God impels us to push on past the difficulties that assail us and to put away our old fears and become a new creation filled with light and courage, for behold, new things have come!