Faith in Christ. With him, we can do everything; without him we are incapable of taking a single step.
If you recall, after the miracle of the loaves, when Jesus asked the apostles to go to their boats and then himself went up to the mountain to pray on his own, however later on a storm formed and the apostles were stuck in it. Jesus saw them from afar buffeted by waves. He started to walk toward them and when the apostles saw Jesus approach them walking in the water, they were filled with fear, Jesus said "Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.
Christ always presents himself in this manner. Peter is moved and wants to join Jesus in the water and says "Lord, if it is thyself, bind me to come over the water". Loves daring has no limits and our Lord easily yields to the request. Peter starts walking in the water with faith and confidence in his "Master" , and so when difficulties that surround us , it doesn't matter if we walk in faith and confidence in Jesus, it doesn't matter if the waves are high, or if its not natural to walk in the water, if we look at Jesus, we can do anything, by looking at him is the virtue of piety, through prayer and the sacraments, we will be in the right path.
However , just like Peter who looks away from Jesus and was distracted by the waves and then his faith at first great, starts to diminish, then he starts to sink, and so like Peter, we sink too many times. Just like Peter we realize the force of the waves and wind it was impossible to walk in water, we instead worry about the difficulties. We miss that if we pay attention , that in in complete trust in Jesus we can avoid our faith diminishing, just like Peter at that moment.
It is God who keeps us afloat and makes us effective in the midst of those apparent impossibilities, it is he who makes us walk on water but on one condition; we should keep our eyes set on Christ., and not allow obstacles and temptations distract us.
When faith diminishes, then difficulties seem greater. If Peter would have kept looking at Jesus, who would have remained firm and walked all the way to Jesus on the water, so we should strive in our prayer to have that confident gaze and prevent our faith to be exposed and sink in discouragement.
Saint Thomas Aquines states: If you want to be saved, look upon the face of your Christ. It is through prayer and the sacraments which is going to help us look upon his face through middle of rough seas we live in.
Even though Peter stopped looking at Christ while walking in the water and sank, but he knew enough to return immediately to Jesus "Lord save me", Peters cries with all his strength when he felt it was loss, and so Jesus with infinite affection, stretched out his hand.
And it is the same with us, when our faith diminishes, cry out to the lord and say "Lord, save me" when going through over whelming difficulties, temptations, failures - let us go to Jesus, because he will always stretch out his hand to us, and pull is up again.
Based from "Conversaion with God" Fr. Fernando
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