Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The importance of faith in everyday life (Mark 4: 35-41)
Point out practical faith.

Can you imagine how illness, failure, the test of an unbeliever can make a believer? Do you have experience with it too? They think that the Lord God will work a miracle on one instruction and they will be healthy, successful again, and they will live as before, although today they are talking about something else.

Jesus asks the apostles, “What are you so afraid of ?! Do you still not have faith? ”(Mk 4,40)

Jesus asked these questions after calming the storm at sea. Jesus slept on a boat. At the call of the apostles, when a storm broke out in the sea, Jesus threatened the plague and said, “Shut up, be still!” A miracle. Today’s critical and scientifically minded people do not believe in miracles. There is no doubt that Jesus performed miracles. Did he prove his power with them? It is certain that when Jesus did something incomprehensible to the mind and impossible with human hands, he did so because he saw faith in people. Where there was no faith, Jesus did not work miracles.
The resurrection of Lazarus is preceded by Jesus’ conversation with Martha, who tells him, “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world” (Jn 11:27).
To the centurion who asked for the healing of the servant, Jesus said, “Go and let it be done to you as you have believed” (Mt 8:13).
Jesus said, “Your faith has healed you” (Mt 9:22) to the woman who suffered from the blood.
Two blind men who ask for their sight, Jesus asks, “Do you believe I can do this?” (Mt 9:28)
After asking about the storm at sea, Jesus asks the apostles, “Do you still not have faith?” (Mark 4:40) Jesus sees fear in the disciples, which makes their faith weak. But they have faith. To see it in the question of one of them: “What do you think that it is that both the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41) weak man. And yet, in the Psalms, the Jews glorify God as the one who has power. “You rule over the unbridled sea and soften its waves.” (Ps 89:10) Thus Jesus proves his power over the raging sea to be God. Today’s man is not convinced that Jesus is God because he calmed the storm. It is good to realize that the text does not talk only about calming the storm. Man is more fascinated by the evil in man’s heart than the stormy sea. It should be noted that Jesus himself addressed the apostles to cross to the other side. And Jesus’ sleep is just as many words as are the words with which he calmed the sea. Jesus appears as the unlimited and sovereign over the power of evil.
Likewise, the question “Who do you think is that both the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41) reveals that the one who asks it knows the answer, but he wants the one who listens to find it. The respondent, that is, any of us, may have a similar experience with Jesus as with someone who is master over evil. He can experience the calming of the storm within, the calming of conflicts between people, healing from a disease of body or soul, or any power of evil. The text of the storm calming event at sea directly calls for everyone to acquire such a fact. And if we do, God himself helps him live it properly, and therefore he receives a grain of faith.

And in the letter to the Hebrews, we read: “Let us hold fast to the hope which we confess, for he is faithful to him which hath promised” (Heb 10:23). Jesus never comes late. All that is needed is more faith. Jesus wanted it to happen “too late,” to teach us that supernatural hope is rooted in a broken human hope and that only boundless confidence is needed in one who can do anything at any time. This devotion in the promise reminds us of our lives when it seems that Jesus is not coming at the right time but suddenly gives us much more grace. It reminds us of the time before the tabernacle when we are immersed in prayer, and then God tells us: do not be afraid, believe! To have hope in God is to trust him, to allow him to act. Our hope must always grow; it must improve even when we are in a state where we do not know what to do.
We often set a goal in our lives. If we want to achieve the supernatural goal of our existence, eternal life, let us not rely on our strength but on God, who is omnipotent, a faithful friend who will never let us down, even in the most difficult moments of our lives.
When we look at the surrounding people, they may take care of worldly things, long for them, but we see the hope that is the stimulus for their actions to achieve these things. He cannot escape our sight, what they can sacrifice to hope that they will achieve their goal. The meaning of their efforts, which are not based on the most meaningful goals in terms of eternity, is not relevant to us now. But the important thing to realize by their example is the hope that keeps them moving forward. When they can be zealous for these, not in God’s eyes the most important values, how much more we should be zealous for God’s cause, for eternity, when we have received the surest hope, the hope with which Jairus also burned.
St. Paul says that in hope, without hope, he believed. That is the case; we can be convinced of each one of us. How many times have we lost hope, and sometimes we may have lost it? Suddenly, we lack the meaning of the activity we did. We will not avoid this mistrust that will come upon us from time to time, but let us not give up. St. Monika, “in hope, without hope,” prayed persistently for 30 years with tears in her eyes for her son Augustine. Did she lose hope or not? It is not important. She held out! And we know that Augustine became a holy bishop. This is the testimony of one ordinary life – a testimony for us.

It is not enough to hope for hope in God and hope to practice because God comes when our strength ends. The strengthening of the hope of hope is persevering prayer, constant dialogue with God. To better understand the exercise in hope, I will tell you the story of an old fisherman:

There is a boat in the bay. An old fisherman stands in front and holds a net in his hands. You can see from his skill that he understands his craft. In a perfect arc, the net fell on the water. He lets it fall and waits until its lead-laden edge touches the bottom. Then he slowly pulls it out, hoping, with his hands, whether there is life in it or whether this throw was in vain. The network is empty. He shakes her, removes dirt from her, and prepares for the next throw. Twenty-three times, the net fell on the water. He pulled it out empty every time. But the old fisherman doesn’t give up; he knows there are days when you have to throw a net twenty, fifty, a hundred times because it is simply necessary to throw it as an exercise in hope because to stop throwing would mean giving up and giving up would mean stop living.

Let’s not give up trust in God! God always stands by us to strengthen us with the virtue of hope for eternal life. Let us ask God for the virtue of hope so that our lives will not be pessimistic, helpless, but joyful. Joyful because we have someone by our side, and that is God. He will always stand by us, even in the most difficult moments. Let’s be like Jairus because he put all his hope in Jesus Christ. Let us put our hope in the hands of our God.