Daily Gospel Reflection
Join the Notre Dame family of faith. Receive God’s Word and a unique reflection in your inbox each day.
January 29, 2022
On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples:
“Let us cross to the other side.”
Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was.
And other boats were with him.
A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat,
so that it was already filling up.
Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.
They woke him and said to him,
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
He woke up,
rebuked the wind,
and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!”
The wind ceased and there was great calm.
Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”
They were filled with great awe and said to one another,
“Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”
Every time I read this passage, something different strikes me as relevant. Today, it’s the part about Jesus in a deep sleep in the back of the boat during a “violent squall.” This storm had his disciples fearful and agitated, and yet Jesus is sleeping so profoundly that he must be forcefully awakened.
How I would love to sleep that soundly!
We often view this story as illustrating the power of Jesus over the natural world or the need for faith by the disciples—and it is. But I’m also wondering what else God is telling us through this passage for today as so many of us feel tossed in a violent, media storm of intense politics and fear-based beliefs.
Christ asks the disciples and, by extension, us: “Do you not yet have faith?” God is always offering that gift of faith and calling us to respond in kind, but what if the key to this gift of faith is found in rest?
Taking time to rest in the Lord during personal or societal storms offers us restoration. It gives us the strength to respond to the storms of life as Christ responded—in a powerful love that we can share with those frightened by what they see and feel.
Today, let us take a step to the back of the boat and take a break from the agitation around us. This is not a careless escape as the disciples initially supposed. It is Christ showing us what it means to rest in God.
Prayer
Lord, you have given Jesus authority over all creation, over each one of us. He exercises his authority by having become one with us in our flesh and blood, in our struggles and hopes. Help us to be so closely united with Jesus that our truest selves will be molded in Jesus’ likeness and that his marvelous compassion quiets the storms within us. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Major relics of the early Christian martyr St. Severa rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica. Upon entering the chapel, visitors are immediately drawn to a wax figure of St. Severa, which rests above two lead boxes that contain her bones.
Severa was a child in a Christian family of martyrs who were killed in the early Christian persecutions. Her parents are Sts. Maximinus and Secunda, and her brothers are Sts. Mark (not the evangelist) and Calendine. Severa's entire family is commemorated all together on this feast day.
Maximinus, her father, commanded a thousand soldiers. When it was discovered that he was converting many of his soldiers to Christianity, he was condemned to work in the mines. When he continued to make converts even there, he was executed.
His wife, Secunda, and her children were arrested and brought to trial. Secunda died from the anxiety of the crisis itself, and Mark, Calendine, and Severa were scourged and martyred.
St. Severa, the child-martyr whose bones rest in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart—pray for us!