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Homily for Wednesday after Epiphany, 08 Jan 2025, Mk 6, 45-52
They had just fed 5,000 people. St. Mark tells us Jesus instructed his disciples to serve them in groups of 50 to 100. Even with 100 per group, he would still have needed at least 50 volunteers to do the serving. They must have been so exhausted because they still had to gather the fragments of leftovers afterwards. And remember, Jesus himself had taught the people during the whole day before the feeding.
Normally, it’s the disciples who organize an “escape boat” to sneak Jesus out and prevent him from getting crushed by the demanding crowds. But this time, what happens is the opposite. Mark tells us Jesus himself “made his disciples get into a boat” and instructed them to “precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida”, i.e., Peter’s hometown. He also dismissed the crowd himself. I imagine him very tired but also very happy that the people were at least going back to their homes satisfied, both spiritually (from being nourished by the Word of God), and physically (with the five loaves and two fish that had been served to them).
But wait, what does he do after dismissing the crowd? Instead of immediately proceeding to Bethsaida, Mark says he went off to the mountain to pray. And look what follows after the praying: first, even though the boat that carried the disciples was already far out on the sea, Mark tells us “he saw that they were tossed about while rowing for the wind was against them.” Second, he” came toward them walking on the sea”! And lastly, when “he got into the boat with them, the wind died down.” Perhaps we can call these three the effects of only one cause: PRAYER.
Let’s go back to the first—how did he know that they were in distress while crossing the sea? One of the most palpable effects of prayer is that it heightens our sensitivity, especially to people who are connected to us spiritually. My late mother used to tell me when she was still alive that, sometimes, while at prayer, she could feel that one or another of my siblings was undergoing a problem or a crisis. And she would confirm it a day or two later. Jesus is often described as “having compassion” on some of the people he met. Prayer must have made him spiritually sensitive.
Now for the second, Jesus comes down to respond to his disciples who are in distress. Prayer does not only make us sensitive; it also gives us the courage to face life’s many trials, or to accompany people who are struggling with the storms of life. Mark describes Jesus “alone on the shore”, “walking on the sea.” The image that Mark is portraying is that of Jesus like Buddha with half open eyes, so absorbed in prayer that he almost passes by them at sea and causes them to think he was a ghost. Prayer’s most palpable effect is, as expressed so well by the famous prayer: to “grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Thirdly, the Gospel tells us, “as soon as Jesus got into the boat with them, the wind died down.” Our first reading from the epistle of St. John expresses this differently. He says, “There is no fear in love; perfect love casts out all fear.” It means to grow in prayer is to soak in the love of God that alone can cast out all our fears. Do we not read a similar thought in the first letter of Peter 5:7, “Cast all your cares to God because he cares for you.”
