Written by Sr. Rosemary Finnegan, O.P.
Readings from: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021621.cfm
There's an old story that comes out of Communist Russia. Each day at quitting time, in all the factories, the guards would check all the workers to make sure that they weren't stealing anything. Night after night, as Ivan left the factory, he would be frisked, have his wheelbarrow examined, and then told to leave. After several months of this procedure, a guard called him aside one night after everyone else had left and said: "I know that you are stealing something, but I can never find it. It's driving me crazy. Please, you can trust me. Tell me and I won't tell anyone. What are you stealing?" Ivan simply responded: "Wheelbarrows."
This guard had missed the obvious. So too, in our gospel, the disciples had missed the obvious. Jesus was with the disciples in the boat, and once again he wanted them to see who he is, but they weren’t understanding any of what he was saying.
They were worried about going hungry, but keep in mind that they had just been witnesses to not one, but two miracles of Jesus when he fed the multitudes with bread. Jesus is warning them not to be like the unbelieving Pharisees or they, too, could be susceptible to unbelief. Jesus knew that if they stopped looking closely at his works, that their faith would be at risk.
How often can we relate to the disciples who just weren’t getting it, whose hearts were questioning, and whose eyes were blind to the obvious. Jesus was asking them to have faith and trust in him.
We know faith is a gift, and we are so grateful for it. But it’s a gift that makes incredible demands on us – demands on our time, our energy, generosity and patience. Faith is work and can be a struggle as we try to live it out every day.
Jesus gave signs to the apostles that revealed his power and authority, but they just didn’t see the ‘wheelbarrows’, so to speak, right in front of them. Jesus hasn’t stopped giving us signs of his presence and love either. All we have to do is learn to stop and take notice. Life gets hard and often we find it difficult to trust God. That’s when we really have to work hard at our faith, work hard at looking and listening for the signs of God in our life, even in the difficult moment.
Lent begins tomorrow, and it’s an opportunity to examine our faith and take steps to enrich it through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. By doing Lent seriously, we’ll be developing our relationship with Christ, the Bread of Life, and we won’t miss the ‘wheelbarrows’ of our spiritual lives.
