In The Boat

Let's look now at the third of Ignatius' rules, and this is where he describes what he calls spiritual consolation, which are beautiful experiences in the spiritual life. When your heart finds joy in God, a sense of God's closeness and love, you are experiencing spiritual consolation. Open your heart to God's gift. So, spiritual consolation means an uplifting movement of the heart: joy, gratitude, peace, love, and so forth. And it's on the spiritual level, on the level of our relationship with God, on the level of faith.

So let's say a man who is discouraged is praying with the text that we just saw recently, Luke 5. He catches a fish, and he reaches this point where Peter, now aware that the Divine is close to him in Jesus, feels his sinfulness, his unworthiness, and he says to Jesus, "Depart from me, I am a sinful man." And as he's praying with this text, he focuses on Jesus' response, "Do not be afraid." And something is warmed in his heart.

Jesus, You see me in my failures and my weakness, and You tell me the same thing too. When, like Peter, I'm afraid, "Do not be afraid," and You confirm my belonging with You and Your mission. And his heart is lifted up gently and warm—a beautiful experience of spiritual consolation. Here is a woman who rises this morning. She's going to get the results of the biopsy this afternoon from the doctor.

And understandably, her heart is anxious. And as she walks down the corridor toward the kitchen to put on coffee and start the day, her eye just catches for a moment, as she walks down the corridor, the placard with the text of Psalm 23 that she's placed on the wall there. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Though I walk in a dark valley, I fear no evil.

You are with me with your rod and your staff. And her heart is gently touched. And she finds herself saying, Lord, I know you'll be with me. You'll see me safely through this spiritual consolation. Maybe one more example.

Let's say, well, let's say it's a man or woman who is going to Confession, and let's say she has something to share that she knows is going to be hard to say, but she is resolved to say it. She goes into the confessional and, with courage and some effort, she shares what she needs to share and is received with great kindness by the priest, and already his words begin to lift the burden. And when he pronounces the absolution, maybe just a tear begins to form in her eyes. Beautiful experiences of spiritual consolation. Now, I know as I describe these, that all of us can recognize times in our own spiritual lives when God has given us these joyful, encouraging, strengthening, uplifting movements of the heart on the spiritual level, on the level of our relationship with Him.

These are gifts of God's grace. Open your heart to receive them when God gives them, and allow the Lord to love and strengthen you through them. Alright. This time, for our text, let's take Matthew 8:23–27, which is the calming of the storm at sea. And again, now we let our hearts rest, become quiet, just become open to hear the Lord, to be with the Lord.

We look into the Lord's eyes and we see the gaze of warm welcome and love and desire to be with us. And we ask You, Jesus, through this prayer for an intimate knowledge of You so that we may love You more and follow You more closely in our lives. This Gospel scene begins by the lakeshore at nightfall after a long day of teaching and healings. Many of the people have gone home, marveling at what they've witnessed. Scattered, probably just small groups of people are still there along the shore of the lake.

And Jesus, now tired at the end of this day, as He does from time to time, asks His disciples to take Him to the other side of the lake to be alone. He got into a boat, and His disciples followed Him. Suddenly, a violent storm came up on the sea so that the boat was being swamped with waves, but He was asleep. They came and woke Him, saying, "Lord, save us. We are perishing."

He said to them, "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?" Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, "What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?" So we are there by the lakeshore, and we see Jesus, wearied at the end of this day, get into the boat, and his disciples also enter into the boat with Him, and maybe we join them. And we're there with this group of disciples in this small fisherman's boat.

And we set out now from the shore, and everything is peaceful. The fishermen take out the oars to row away from the shore. When they are sufficiently out on the water, they ship the oars and set up the fishermen’s sail. The wind catches it, and the boat heads out from shore. We see the shoreline recede behind us, the lights of these small towns along the shoreline.

And gradually, peace comes into the scene. I look back and see Jesus has fallen asleep in the stern of the boat. A man like us in all things but sin, as we read in the Letter to the Hebrews. But now, as can happen on this lake because of the shape of the surrounding hills and the nature of the water, the storm begins to arise, and it arises rapidly. The wind grows increasingly strong.

The waves begin to form and beat against the boat. They begin to even splash into the boat as well. And I see these fishermen who, precisely because they are, so to speak, the professionals of the water and understand well. This is not the non-sailor's fear because he or she doesn't know what to do in this situation. They do know, and they know the seriousness of it, and that's why they're afraid.

The danger is real. It is imminent. It is serious. With them, I feel the power of the wind as it screams now across the rigging of this small boat, buffeted now by the waves and the wind and the water crashing in. And I think of the storms in my own life—maybe in the past, maybe now in my life—those times when suddenly everything seems out of control, headed toward darkness, ready to collapse and give way.

And I have felt like the disciples’ fear in my heart. I feel like I've done everything I know how to do, and the situation remains. And Jesus sleeps. I see them draw near to Jesus as the boat rolls and pitches on the waves, tossed by the storm. And with them, I too cry out, “Lord, save us.”

We are perishing. That is a prayer that most of us probably know and have made at times out of fear and desperation to the Lord. He awakens, and before He does anything to calm the storm—and the peril is real and imminent—He says to them and to us, Why are you terrified? Why are you afraid, O you of little faith? And now, maybe as I pray, I hear the Lord say this to me personally.

Why are you afraid? And from my heart now, I take the time to answer. I am afraid, Lord, because of this situation. I am afraid because of this struggle in my life. I'm afraid that I am too weak to deal with it.

I am afraid of all that I see around me in the world. I tell the Lord of the storms in my own life. And I hear His invitation to trust, to have faith. And now they, and I with them, watch as Jesus stands and with a mere simple word commands the wind and the sea, and they grow calm. And I begin just to glimpse the power in this man, Jesus—in the Lord Jesus—to resolve the storms in my life.

And now, perhaps, I just take time to be quietly with the Lord, to tell the Lord all that stirs in my heart—my fears, my storms—and to ask Him to be with me in them and to guide me safely through them. I want to quote a commentary of Saint John Chrysostom on this passage, and he's commenting actually only on four words from this passage: "But He was asleep." It's a lovely example of what we mean by meditation. So, Saint John Chrysostom says this: "But He was asleep. Therefore, He sleeps."

So what he's going to look at is why, here they are in imminent, desperate danger, crying out to Him, and He's sleeping. Why does He do this? Really, you can see that what Saint John Chrysostom is dealing with here is these situations in our lives when we are in desperate trouble, and we cry out to the Lord and He doesn't seem to respond. It seems like He's sleeping. Why does the Lord allow them, and allow us, to go through such situations?

Therefore, He sleeps. For had He been awake when it happened, either they would not have feared. So if we were never asked by the Lord to go through these situations, we would never learn of the Lord's power and closeness in the same way. If the disciples had never been through the storm at sea when Jesus sleeps, would they ever have learned of His power in the same way? And you can know that from this point on, as they go forward in life, they will go forward with a new confidence.

We can look back over our own lives and see those times when we felt so alone in the midst of storms. And we see more clearly now, at a distance, how the Lord brought us safely through, and our confidence grows. Or they would not have besought Him. They would have never made that desperate prayer from the heart. We've all made such prayers at times when we feel completely helpless.

We turn to God and just say, help me, because I can't do anything. And something is growing in us as we pray this way. Or they would not so much as have thought of His being able to do any such thing. They would have never known that He could resolve, heal, settle even such seemingly impossible situations as this. They've learned that now because He's called them to go through this as He sleeps.

And so he sums this up. Therefore, he sleeps to give occasion for their timidity and to make their perception of what was happening more distinct. There was a kind of spiritual learning about God's providence and grace and power that we never forget when we've been through the storms and Jesus seems to have slept, ultimately always bringing us through the storm. So may God grant us that confidence. May that grow as we continue to pray with these exercises.

Amen.