Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 10 August 2014

Like Paul I write my reflection ‘with great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart’, for in Iraq and the Middle East our sisters and brothers in the faith and others of different faiths are being exiled, brutalized, maimed and martyred for their faith. We cannot let our world stand by and do nothing, so I and others are trying to get the power shakers and movers to speak out, and those of the household of our faith, especially our shepherds, to stand up and be counted for the sake of these little ones of Christ.

Matthew’s Gospel tells of the incident of Jesus on the water, where Peter in answer to Jesus’ command to ‘come’, steps out into the sea and sinks. ‘Save me’ he cries and Jesus reaches out and takes his hand, whilst asking why he ever doubted him?

Isn’t the situation of our turbulent world just like that moment? How many of our Eastern Christians have cried out in their anguish, Lord save us? How many in Liberia frightened of Ebola have prayed for deliverance. Where then is God in all this?

Perhaps like Peter this is the time to acknowledge that we do doubt, we are frightened when the world is to much for us to comprehend. Then it is the time to turn back to the Lord in simplicity of heart, time to strip from our lives the unnecessary spiritual baggage we carry and in our prayers say quite simply, save us Lord. How will this help us?

In the famous passage from the book of Kings where Elijah shelters in a cave on Mount Horeb, God calls him to ‘come’ just like Peter, to watch his passing, to see his majesty and glory. All the trappings we might associate with awe and majesty such as earthquake, wind and fire happen, but the Lord is not present in any of them.

Nor perhaps is the Lord present in the destruction wreaked out on innocent people. Like Elijah, as for countless millions throughout time, God is found in the whisper of the heart, in the silence of that moment when we hear our heartbeat and then notice another heartbeat with it. Fanciful? No, for God is always with the powerless, always in those moments of littleness, always with those in pain whose only prayer is ‘save us’. God is there!

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