Letting Jesus Sleep

Friday, May. 15, 2020

“We are all in the same storm, but we are not all in the same boat.”

That meme came across my Facebook feed as a reminder that while all of us are living amid the storm of COVID-19, not all of us are affected in the same way: Some of us have lost jobs, others have seen their pay reduced, not to mention the difficulties faced by those who have contracted the virus, or the pain felt by those who have lost loved ones during this pandemic.

The same day that the meme appeared, my daily Scripture reading was the Gospel story about Jesus sleeping in the boat while the disciples cower in the face of a storm that threatens to swamp their vessel. Overcome by fear, the disciples wake Jesus.

“Do you not care if we perish?” they ask.

Jesus rebukes the wind, stills the sea, and responds to the disciples with questions of his own: “Why were you afraid? Have you no faith?”

Classic interpretation of this scene offers the boat as a symbol of either the Catholic Church or of the soul of an individual. St. Augustine of Hippo, commenting on this passage, says, “Christian, Christ is asleep in your boat. Wake him up, and he will calm the storm and your fears. … To wake Christ means to awaken your faith, to recall what you believe.” 

On the other hand, St.  Thérèse of Lisieux, feeling forsaken and faced with the image of Jesus slumbering in her “boat,” nevertheless promises not to wake him. 

“I know that other souls rarely let him sleep peacefully, and he is so wearied by the advance he is always making that he hastens to take advantage of the rest I offer him,” she wrote in her autobiography.

Thérèse saw in the sleeping Jesus a man exhausted by his efforts to go after sinners. She also had utter trust that he was the Son of God who, were he to awake, could with a glance quell the wind and sea. 

In the midst of the storm brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, I am trying to take the advice of St. Alphonsus Liguori: When threatened by doubt or despair, a person should “use the human means you have at your disposal and … put your trust in God,” said this 18th-century Doctor of the Church, moral theologian, founder of the Redemptorists and patron saint of confessors.

I confess that at the moment I am fighting to keep the storm from overwhelming me. This, despite the fact that I am one of the fortunate ones who still has a job that allows me to pay my bills, keep a roof over my head and food on the table, and even have a bit to offer those less fortunate than myself. Nor have I lost loved ones to the coronavirus. I count my blessings and am trying to keep my trust in God, but when I see so many in my community struggling, and read of all the deaths the virus has caused, and look at the economic suffering that has already begun and is projected to get worse, my faith falters. I am praying several times a day, recalling what I believe, as St. Augustine advises. I am also, as St. Alphonsus suggests, using the human means at my disposal to battle despair: I am eating right, getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, keeping in contact with friends.

Despite all this, despair at the situation threatens to overwhelm me. I am trying to allow Jesus to rest in my boat – my vessel is scarcely being rocked, while  so many others are threatened with being overturned – but will my prayers for them wake the Lord so that he will calm the storm, rebuke the wind, tell the waves to be still and send forth his Spirit to renew the face of the Earth?