"Why are you terrified?"

"Do you not yet have faith?"

These questions our Lord poses to his disciples in today’s Gospel he may often pose to us.

What does he mean?

On one level, he means, “Do you not have trust in me?”

On another level, we have this famous definition of faith that begins today’s first reading:

Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.

We are sometimes terrified by what we see: the world is often not a good place, nor is our health, safety and prosperity on this earth forever assured.

But we have faith, by God’s grace. We trust Christ. We have assurance of things not yet seen.

If we hold onto that faith, if we hold onto Christ (or rather, let ourselves be held by Christ), then we can endure anything in the world we see or even suffer.

But as it is written,
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man,
the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him.
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit:
for the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea, the deep things of God.
1 Corinthians 2:9-10