Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Mark (4: 35-41) in which Jesus, after calming the storm, says to his disciples, “Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?”.

Fr Paul says you have to think that Jesus certainly seems to have chosen a pretty dumb and unappreciative group of disciples. They do call him ‘Master’, but after all these wonders they have seen and experienced they still don’t really trust him and have no hesitation about addressing him rudely.

However, once Jesus’ attention has been roused, once the disciples put their trust in him, he effortlessly fixes the situation. There is surely an echo of the prophet Jonah, who was sleeping through the storm and was awakened by the sailors to provide a solution.

The purpose of this Gospel is to show that Jesus is acting as only God could act.

But are we like the disciples? Are we just slow and untrusting? Are we behaving as though Jesus were quietly snoozing, quite unconcerned about our troubles and concerns as we struggle, hopelessly, in the storms around us?

Or, Fr Paul asks, have we learnt, through the disciples, that we can put our trust in Jesus that Jesus can fix things in our lives when asked?