‘Quiet! Be still!’

Like any ordinary man, Jesus was very tired after a day’s ministry with the crowds by the seashore. "Let us cross to the other side," he told his disciples. They got into a small boat and started to cross the waters. Soon after, the exhausted Jesus fell asleep at the rear end of the boat. A windstorm with rain suddenly came upon them, and big waves were fast breaking over the boat. Alarmed for their lives, they woke him up with fear and trembling. "Teacher, do you not care that we are about to die?" Jesus woke up, faced the winds and water, and simply said: "Quiet! Be still!" And a great calm came just like that. He then confronted his disciples: "Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?" (From today’s Gospel reading, Mk. 4: 35-41).

In other words, Jesus was saying: "What are you afraid of? I am with you. In life or in death, I am with you. That is what really matters, whether it be a long life or a short one." But they were not yet on that level of awareness. What they were aware of was their deep attachment to life, and if we may add, an inordinate attachment to it.

What about us? What are we most afraid of at this point in our lives? Allow the Lord to confront us with the very same words, for we often experience what the disciples went through. Storms in our lives that overwhelm us with fears. Is it fear of sickness, hunger, insults, contempt, loss of material possessions, loss of a loved one, a short life – among others? Behind our fears are our inordinate attachments. How are we to overcome these, so that we may experience continuing peace and calm when we hear the Lord say, "Quiet! Be still!"? The only way is to allow him to be the one and only Center of our lives. When everything is said and done, God is the only absolute. Everything else is relative. Everything.

"Everything is precious because it is from God, and yet everything is relative – precisely because everything is precious only in relation to God." (P. Divarkar)

Our human condition is such, however, that we often find ourselves creating our own emotional programs for happiness, instead of receiving this from God, the source of our true and lasting happiness. As the spiritual writer Thomas Keating points out, this is due to our instinctual needs for security, pleasure, affection, esteem, power, and control. These needs come from our psycho-emotional scars, our False Self System. Needs become insatiable demands.

It is in this context that we owe it our Creator and our own happiness that we continually allow him to mold and form us according to his own designs, like clay in the potter’s hands.

"This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Rise up, be off to the potter’s house; there I will give you my message. I went down to the potter’s house and there he was, working at the wheel. Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand, he tried again, making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased. Then the word of the Lord came to me. Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done? says the Lord. Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel" (Jer. 18: 1-6).

What about you? Do you also want to be the clay in the Potter’s hand? Can you give your absolute "yes" to that — and all that it means? So that at the end of your life, you can be nothing less than a masterpiece of God, and say to him: Here I am, Lord. Mission accomplished.

All this involves a discerning heart throughout your lifetime, especially at times when there is windstorm and noise within you, and the Lord says, "Quiet! Be still!" Listen to him in the silence of your heart, and you will know where he wants you to go, and what he wants you to do.

This is also what our national leaders are asked by Lord to do. Where is he leading our nation, so that we may really become God’s people? In faith, I know that in God’s own time, for as long as we are giving him our best, we will become a nation of love, justice, and peace.

"We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who have been called according to his decree" (Rom. 8: 28).