a little boat in a severe storm at night. All seemed lost for a very long time: it was not until nearly the break of dawn that Jesus appeared to them. When he did so, it was in a way they could never have expected, walking on water. They were so despondent that at first they denied the reality of their Saviour: "It is a ghost!"

Jesus' first words to them were to take courage and not to fear.

He called Peter to him, and Peter followed, doubted, began to sink, and finally was caught by Jesus who took him by the hand. "'You of little faith,' he said, 'why did you doubt?'"

Peter discovered then that his existence wasn't something of his own choosing but came from an obedient relationship with the Lord who loved him.

I think most of us long for the Church as we experience it to be better than it is. We long for God to use the Church to lift us out from the confusion and difficulties of our lives and to place our feet on solid ground. God will do so, and through his Church. But often he waits late into the night to save us because our confusions and difficulties serve his purposes. He is not their author but even these lie within his providence. In them we discover our weakness, our incapacity to captain our own vessel, and our need to trust absolutely in the one who calls us to step out to him—he whom even the wind and the waves obey, and who alone can calm the sea.

Take courage. Be not afraid.

Anthony Burton
Bishop of Saskatchewan