Everyone in thought and word desires to make it into Heaven, but I hope that people are actually brave enough to make it there. We must each follow the words contained in our Gospel and thus pass onto the other side. The other side for us is referring towards our journey into the Kingdom of Heaven. This journey is possible, but it does not come as easily as we often believe it to be. We must be willing to take up the fullness of the message of the Gospel and thus grow in our love for Christ and His Church. The more we are able to do this the more we will banish the many temptations which cry out to us with the sole purpose of leading us away from the Lord. "The love of Christ impels us" forward towards the Heavenly Kingdom if we are brave enough to love Christ over all of our wordily longings.
The shouts of fear that were uttered from the lips of the apostles still ring true for us to this day. "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Storms give rise in our life abundantly each day and yet we cannot allow ourself to lose hope. These storms beat the boat of our life around and often cause us to lose hope that making it to the other side is a possibility. Without hope we either freak out and get lost in the abundance of the waters or we turn back towards our old way of life forgetting the true happiness and joy that actually awaits us on the other side. These winds and furious seas represent our own materialism, our excessive love for comfort, our sensuality, and our ignorance and thus they all give way to clouding our mind from the true path that now lays before us and thus getting lost in the midst of our passions or simply turning back to what we falsely believe to be safety and comfort.
We must be brave and thus allow ourself to stand firm in the midst of our faith when these temptations give rise. If we stand firm these temptations will pass bye and we in return will grow in virtue instead of remaining lost in vice. We must be willing to allow Christ to enter into our life; not as an excuse to continue to sin, but as the means for our delivery from these many temptations that plague our soul. Just as strong and firm as these words were in the life of the apostles they are also to our ears and thus to the storms that are currently present in our life. "Quiet! Be still!" If we truly desire the Kingdom of Heaven we must allow Christ to utter these words on our behalf and thus allow Him to calm the storms of our life. We cannot ignore Christ and these words because in doing so these storms will continue to beat us about, in time they will even get worse, and thus in return the Kingdom of Heaven becomes only a blur that we may never be able to see with our eyes.
Why would we want to deprive ourself, our friends, or even our family from the beauty and calmness of life that is found in the Kingdom of Heaven? What is found on the other side is the true beauty that was created to be prior to the Fall. On the other side we cannot discover sadness, sickness, nor death because we have now for the rest of time have been joined into perfect union with God the Father who is the creator of all things. In Heaven these storms of temptation no longer beat us about, but first we must be brave enough to tame them through our faith firmly placed upon Christ. In order to have faith firmly placed upon Him we must be brave because if we are not we will never come to know Him because we preferred the comfort of the world to this relationship. In this manner we must ask ourself the same questions that were presented to the apostles. "Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?"
Today we also have the opportunity to celebrate Father's Day. I therefore encourage us to always keep Saint Joseph before our eyes. Saint Joseph was not terrified nor did he ever cease to have faith. Saint Joseph did not allow himself nor his family to get caught up in the fears of life, but he always led them forward towards the other side. He was given a special ministry over God and marriage. He took Mary as his wife and in return he guarded and protected her and always made her happy. He was to raise and teach the Son of God who as a child needed the protective care of his earthly father. It is my hope that all fathers will look to this wonderful saint on this most special day and in return see the proper way to treat their wife and the proper way to treat their children in order that they may grow in their love for virtue and God as a family. May fathers not be terrified of leading their family towards the Kingdom of Heaven. The storms of this life may be fierce, but Saint Joseph always leads us forward with a true example that these storms can and will be tamed. May each of us truly desire to make it to Heaven and may we in return be brave enough to make it there while taking as many souls as possible with us along the way.
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