Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 21st June 2015

12th Sunday of the Year

The sights and sounds of boats in harbours is something that fills my imagination and has been a life-long interest. I love Cornwall and its coastline so many of my images come from there, but any harbour is a magical place. The sea is obviously in my blood, but I know that beautiful as it might be, like all water places it has to be respected and feared as well.

Jesus loves the waters too, some of the greatest images of him are settings by the sea and of course, many of his first followers were fisher-folk. In Mark's Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus is on board a ship, sleeping through a tempestuous gale whilst everybody else on board is frightened for their lives. When wakened he rebukes them for their lack of faith, but to settle them shows just who he is, the Holy One who was there at creation and who loves and sustains it still, and for them calms the great elements!

That image of Jesus, the Word made flesh , the word spoken at creation who named and shaped life is there in his command to the wind and sea, 'Quiet now! Be calm!'. This is the Lord of life, part of the Trinity who guides and shapes us still, for as Paul puts it 'in Christ, there is a new creation'. This is echoed in the passage from Job 3 about the origins of the seas, I love God's response to Job at the heart of the tempest, reminding him that 'I wrapped it in a robe of mist and made black clouds its swaddling bands'. It is God, not human beings, who really marks the boundaries of nature, who continues on the work of creation.

Yet we are in a time of great difficulty with life and nature and our planet. We seem to have forgotten how to love it and use its resources well. Pope Francis in his wonderful encyclical Laudato si pulls together all the problems confronting life on our little blue planet and in Gods name asks all of us to do something. For the moment this is our home and we must care for it. Like the psalmist on the waters we ask God to lead us to the haven we desire and to thank the Lord for the wonders he does for all life on earth!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Great Britain.