This morning’s Gospel reading is Matthew 14:22–33:

After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified.

“It is a ghost, ” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.”

Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. 

Ever do “trust exercises”? For some reason, my group of friends in high school discovered this, perhaps through theater classes, and it became a popular party activity for a hot second. Most readers probably have done this or have seen it done, but I’ll describe it anyway. One person positions him/herself behind another and pledges to catch the other person as they fall blindly backwards. The idea is to build trust and reliance on each other.

The trick, of course, is that this tests faith and reliability on the part of both. The person standing behind has to catch their falling friend, but that falling friend has to trust the catching friend enough to complete the exercise. Occasionally, the person falling would catch themselves before the point of no return, as is natural to do. In fact, a large part of this trust exercise taught how unnatural trust could be, and how we are wired to protect ourselves rather than rely on others to protect us. If you couldn’t get past that instinct for self-reliance, you couldn’t pass the test.

Most of the time, it worked. Most of the time. Being teenagers, we weren’t always the most trustworthy or reliable of God’s children. Since then, I’ve seen it occasionally in corporate “team building” exercises and other contexts, but the simplicity and the obvious lesson from the exercise remain the same. It’s about faith and trust.

This comes to mind in today’s Gospel reading, but perhaps not in the most immediate context of the passage. In that sense, this is a failed trust exercise, not because Jesus fails to catch Peter, but because Peter fails to trust Jesus. Jesus has to rescue Peter from his lack of faith and descent into fear. The lesson here in the first blush is that faith in Christ can work miracles, as long as we keep our faith and trust in Him. If not, we quickly sink. Peter’s occasional episodes of struggles with faith amplify this part of the message in today’s Gospel.

There is another lesson here, though, which runs a bit more subtly through this passage. It reminds me of the Jesus Prayer, with which I began the reflection: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Not being formed in Catholic education, this prayer came to me later in life, and was recommended as a way to deal with sin and temptation. This does not take the place of confession, but it helps to reorient when temptation and sin are either present or have had their effects.

In other words, it’s a prayer to use when you’re falling.

In today’s Gospel, Peter says something similar when his fear overcomes his faith. It seems almost natural to ask someone to save you when you are sinking in water, especially in the middle of a storm. Peter, however, was a fisherman by trade and would have known how to swim back to the boat on his own, even in rough water; at the least, he would have tried to swim back as his first impulse.

Instead, Peter cries out, “Lord, save me!” The Jesus Prayer, in that sense, asks the same thing that Peter did while sinking in the water — to save us. And Jesus proceeds to save Peter, while rebuking him for his lack of faith in the first instance. But it’s clear that, while Peter may have failed that first “trust exercise,” he trusted that the Lord would save him in some way.

In looking more at this passage, one of the most memorable revelations of Christ’s nature in the Gospels, we can see a second layer to its meaning. Of course, a pure faith will allow us to work wonders for His name, and a lack of such leads us to potential ruin. However, even beyond the call for that pure faith and trust, Jesus calls us to remember His love while we’re sinking, too. That, after all, is our normal condition in this fallen world, where we fall into sin and temptation, even while knowing of our weakness. We slip through the surface of the water, either by inches or fathoms, and that water can drown us if we think of it as an inexorable consequence of our failures.

Jesus loves us more than that, however. Even when we sink, even when we have sunk fully below the surface, we can call on His name to give us strength and to pull us from the drowning seas of sin and temptation. All we have to do is cry out in sincerity, humility, and mournfulness for our unworthiness: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Or maybe, just call out, “Lord, save me!”

Jesus will remind us of our lack of true faith and trust, but He will not let us fall — if we just trust Him to save us.

The front-page image is a detail from “Christ Rescuing Peter from Drowning,” by Lorenzo Venziano, 1370. On display at the Staatliche Museum, Berlin. Via Wikimedia Commons. 

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.