The Great Storm That Frightens Us
Julián Carrón - He could have arrived that evening and said to the sea and the waves, "Calm down. I am here with my friends, do not disturb!" Instead, it did not happen that way. Not sparing His own, Jesus also had to go through the storm. We see him there, "lying on a pillow in the stern, sleeping," peaceful, abandoned, and safe in the hands of his Father, the One who foresees everything. And so we see the difference between him and the disciples, and also with us, who so often allow ourselves to be overcome by fear. The reaction of the disciples astonishes Jesus: "But still you have no faith?" - Have you not yet understood who is the Lord of all?
In retrospect, each of us can ask what would have been better: to have spared the disciples the storm or to have seen Jesus experience it. To have seen someone appear in such greatness that they were speechless: "Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him?" Jesus' whole concern is to create in people this mode, this certainty that he himself has in the way of experiencing the real, in which everything is in the hands of another who knows exactly what we need.
But this storm was nothing compared to the real storm that even Jesus would not be spared, which is death. If Jesus does not face the great storm that frightens us all, which is death, the real storm is not resolved! The storms on the lake are nothing compared to the real storm that looms over us. So without going through that storm, the fear and uncertainty will continue. But in the second reading, St. Paul says, "The love of Christ possesses us," to show how deep this love is.
And we know very well that it does, because "he died for us, so that we no longer live for ourselves [fearful, determined by uncertainty], but for him who died for us and rose again". Anyone who has this awareness - to which all of Jesus' teaching is meant to lead the disciples and us - can't look at things according to each person's way of thinking, according to the human way of thinking. "We do not look according to the human way," because the one who has known Christ, the one who has seen him act, the one who sees him act in life, in history, cannot look at things as if he had not seen him, cannot look at reality, circumstances, challenges, storms as before, in the human way. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature".
Not because he's spared from the storm, but because, as a "new creature," the way of experiencing the real, according to everyone's mentality, is now old. "Old things have passed away; behold, all things are born anew." Something has happened in history that is a point of no return. Since then, there has been no reality, no history, no circumstance that we can look at without having in mind the unique and total victory of Christ, even over death. Therefore, he who lives with this awareness is truly a new creature!
Because he cannot look at reality except with Christ present in his eyes, with his victory, with his certainty, because "old things have passed away, behold, new things have been born". Our community is born from this event, and the only real help we can give ourselves is to help ourselves to live with this knowledge, because otherwise, even after meeting Him, we will live in fear like the disciples. They had seen Him so many times, but they were still afraid, and when something happened that was beyond their measure, they reacted like everyone else, "But don't you care that we sink?" And He would continue in amazement, "Why are you afraid? Don't you have faith anymore?"
This is the generation of the new creature to which all the pedagogy of Jesus is directed. And we, who went with Fr. Giussani, saw how he created us. Because Fr. Giussani simply had the desire to generate a person with a certainty that became personal. Not determined by something that we feel but is not yet ours, and therefore remains determined by uncertainty, but that it is truly ours, that it is personalized so that our life can be lived in a new way, with the certainty that it is already embraced. Someone else takes care of it so that we can face everything, every challenge, with this certainty.
Unrevised notes and translation from the homily by Julián Carrón. Download.
