“Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?”

About three years ago, I learned the meaning of fear. It was my first flight in a small plane in Guyana. The pilot took off, climbed to about 5,000 feet, looked around him, decided that everything was satisfactory, sat back, took his hands off the controls, lifted his feet from the pedals and started doing a crossword. Suddenly ­ and for the rest of the flight ­ I was terrified at the thought of the plane being out of control and spiralling down to an interesting but brief explosion in the rain forest. Of course, that never happened ­ the plane carried on serenely in level flight until we got to our destination. And I am sure that there was never any real danger at all. But, even knowing that in my head and trying to tell it to myself, didn’t actually make it feel any better.

And even after two months of flying regularly a couple of times a week in a small place, I couldn’t entirely get rid of it. I still felt just a little bit nervous getting into the plane. I still kept hearing the words of the old Amerindian man who preferred to go down to the coast by trail, rather than by plane “If the truck breaks down, where you is, is where you is. If the plane breaks down, then where you is, is where you ain’t!”

But in the Gospel, the fears of the disciples are not the fears of people who haven’t done this before. These are experienced fishermen who know exactly what a storm is and who know that this is a bad one. The fears that can beat us come not from a lack of knowledge or a lack of experience. They come from a lack of faith. It is by faith that we can trust that ­ whether or not our most feared disaster happens ­ the boat sinks; the plane falls out of the sky; or whatever is our personal dread that wakes us up in a cold sweat at 2 in the morning. Whatever it is, the answer is not “Don’t worry about it, it’s not going to happen.” It just very well might. Faith is the ability to know ­ not just in the head, but in the heart ­ that even if the very worst does happen, Jesus is still with me in the boat and He loves me and He saves me. It is the gift of being able to pray every day "Jesus ­ ain’t nothing going to happen today that you and me can’t handle together". Or, as one of the RAM pilots once said “Every pilot knows that he can get it wrong and fly into a mountain. Well, if I do that, at least I can know I was doing something worthwhile at the time.”

Grant us Lord that free from fear and saved from the hands of our foes, we may serve you in holiness and justice all the days of our life in your presence.

And let us stand and profess our Faith in Christ who calms all the fears and storms in our lives.

Mount Street Jesuit Centre,
114 Mount Street,
London SW1K 3AH.
ENGLAND.
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