In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
In today's Gospel, there's two particular aspects I'd like to reflect upon.
The first is, we see that the disciples are slow in understanding who Jesus is, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world.
That He had just performed this miracle by which He fed 5,000.
And we would have thought that this would be an occasion of amazement, of joy, of wonder.
But interestingly, the Gospel points out that their hearts were hardened.
We have to wonder, why would their hearts have been hardened?
Was it because they were tired? They were exhausted?
They had been overwhelmed?
Having this incident on the sea in which they were being tossed around?
But in the end, it just points to us how even the disciples, who were chosen by Christ to follow Him, were not perfected in His grace when He called them.
That they still had imperfections in their disposition, and that they were not yet totally conformed to Him.
And, and allowed themselves to be transformed by Him in His grace.
And so it's just to give us encouragement, when we recognize our own faults and perfections, our own sinfulness, that we should not give up, not get discouraged, but to persevere.
As these disciples went on to become great saints, the apostles went on to become great saints, so too, our Lord's grace is with us to help us, even in our sinfulness, to be transformed by Him, that we open our hearts to Him, and allow Him to transform us, transform us.
The other beautiful thing that we can take from this gospel today is that Jesus always reminds us not to be afraid.
And He repeats this several times.
Take courage, it is I.
Do not be afraid.
That even in the midst of trials and difficulties in this world, no matter what we face in life, we must always take courage, knowing that Christ is with us.
He is at our side, and we have nothing to fear.
That He wants us to have trust and confidence in Him, no matter what we face in life.
Be not afraid.
And this was, of course, repeated so many times by our Holy Father, Pope St. John Paul II.
Be not afraid.
That we, as part of our faith, part of our faith journey, is that we walk fearlessly with confidence in Christ's help and assistance, no matter what we face in life.
Our Lord Jesus had told St. Faustina the one thing that had caused Him disappointment in us is that we do not trust Him.
And so one of the things we can do for this new year to be renewed in our trust in Christ, to trust Him no matter what we face, no matter where He leads us, that we may trust Him in all things.
Jesus, I trust in You.
Jesus, I trust in You.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.