“Bid me come to you”. A wonderful phrase with which we may begin our prayer. Prayer is the most noble activity we can perform. Our greatest good is to worship God. The Holy Spirit inspires and guides our prayer,enabling us to call on God as our Father. This wonderful ability, which is God’s gift, is ours to use at will, all we need is a little faith, like the Peter in the Gospel Bid me come to you. Peter evidently believed that Jesus command: Come, would see him through. His faith failed, and he began to sink. This is a pattern many of us experience. We read in the Scriptures of God’s care for all, both nations and individuals. Our reading and our prayer, by which we assimilate the lessons set before us, bring growth in faith. The test comes when the props are taken away, and we, or members of our families, have to face sickness, unemployment or some other great trial and, eventually, inevitably, death itself. We feel like Peter when he had left the boat. We are in the unknown, utterly dependent on God, yet barely able to recognise the fundamental truth that God remains our Father, that he is eternally Father, that God is love. In difficulty we are ever more dependent on the Holy Spirit, who alone enables us to persevere in faith, to call upon God as our Father and on Jesus Christ as Lord, in what may be for a time the darkness of faith,.
In our second reading St Paul shares the zeal of Moses for the welfare of Israel, his brothers and sisters. Paul reveals to us the searing pain and chronic distress he suffered at the failure of Israel to recognize Jesus as the the One for whom they hoped. It is also the zeal of Our Lord: he wept over Jerusalem: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not. He took our guilt upon himself and underwent the dereliction of the cross.
Our first reading encourages us to calm and to trust. After the sacrifice on Mount Carmel and the extermination of the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, Jezebel sent a warning to Elijah. That message caused him to flee for his life, to take refuge in the wilderness. It was there that he received the vision, the revelation related in the first reading. It is a message encouraging moderation. The Lord, in his coming is meek, gentle, peaceable. He doesn’t break the bent reed, nor quench the smouldering wick. After the wind that shatters the rocks and the earthquake comes the soughing of the gentle breeze. Calm, peace and silence are the signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Elijah is not alone: the Lord has preserved for himself seven thousand people who have not fallen into idolatry. Many things were hidden even from the prophets, so we should not presume that we can grasp God’s plan: we know that is a plan of wisdom and of love. Even in the darkness of faith let us never forsake charity: God, in his wisdom, power and love, will never forsake us.