TEXT: Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 9, 2026
August 9, 2026 Father De Celles Homily
19th Sunday Ordinary Time
August 9, 2026
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
Today’s Gospel relates a powerful story in the life of Jesus
and the nascent Church.
A story about the power of Jesus and the necessity of faith.
But if we dive a little deeper at the symbols presented in the text,
we can find some beautiful insights often overlooked by Christians.
In particular, there are, it seems, five important symbolic figures in the text:
Jesus, Peter, the boat, the sea and the wind.
The first, Jesus, symbolically represents, well, Jesus.
Not a Jesus with presumed limitations,
but Jesus as He truly is, as God the Son and Son of Mary,
and also all He taught, commanded and revealed.
The second symbol, Peter, represents not just Peter,
but also all his successors as pope and as bishop–
so all the popes and bishops for two millennia.
Third, the boat, has constantly been understood to represent the Church,
or the “Barque of Peter.”
The pope captains, steers and commands this boat,
but he also includes, serves and depends on the crew and the passengers.
The fourth symbol is the sea.
Beginning in Genesis chapter 1,
the sea in scripture is used to symbolize chaos,
especially of the world, and the trials of life in the world, including death.
So, let’s look at how this symbolic imagery comes together in today’s gospel,
and how it might apply to the Church today.
Like the boat on the turbulent sea in the gospel,
the Church is also often tossed around by the chaos of the world.
And like the apostles in the boat, Catholics in the Church today
are frightened by this chaos and turbulence.
They look around and think, where is Jesus?
It’s interesting…in the story Jesus isn’t with them in the boat;
He’s up on the mountain praying to His Father.
This is another symbol: Mountains usually symbolize heaven,
and today, in the life of the Church,
sometimes it seems like Jesus is in heaven, but not with the Church.
So, we have all this turbulence in the sea and the boat, without Jesus.
But finally, in “the fourth watch of the night,”
meaning around 3 to 6 in morning,
which is to say the darkest hour just before dawn,
Jesus appears.
In the life of the Church, sometimes, often, it seems that Jesus
doesn’t seem to show up until the last possible moment,
when everything is darkest
and the waves of the world are crashing all around us the worst,
filling the boat with muck and threatening to sink it.
But notice in the Gospel, Jesus doesn’t show up in the boat,
as in another time in the gospel when He’s asleep in the back of the boat.
This time, the apostles don’t just turn around and see Him sitting there,
“Oh, there you are.”
No, Jesus shows up standing outside the boat, on the sea.
And He’s not only not sinking, but the waves don’t affect Him at all.
How does that happen, and what does it mean?
It means He’s in charge of the sea and the waves and the world.
This whole text has lots of allusions
to the first chapter of Genesis and the creation of the world,
or to put it another way, the story of God’s power over the entire universe.
At the beginning of Genesis 1 we read:
“In the beginning…darkness covered the face of the deep waters…
And God said, ‘Let there be a dome [the sky]…
and let it separate the waters.’
And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky
be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear…’
God called the…waters…Seas…“
Notice the phrase, “God said.”
That is the word of God.
And Jesus is the word of God, who spoke and commanded the water
so that from the beginning, He is the creator
and controls the universe, particularly the water.
Jesus doesn’t always do that in the way we expect or want, though.
In today’s gospel He’s not in the back of the boat as usual, sleeping.
And instead of relief and joy,
when the apostles see Jesus in command of the waters,
they are afraid of Him: “It is a ghost!”
In the life of the Church when things seem so bad and dark that it seems hopeless,
Jesus always shows up in power,
but not always in the way we expect or want.
Although Jesus is always with the Church,
sometimes He makes Himself known by
acting in great power outside of where we’d usually expect Him.
For example, think back to the first three centuries of the Church.
We were almost under constant persecutions:
All but three of the first thirty-two popes were martyred,
and two of the other three died in exile.
For three centuries things seemed pretty bleak for Christians.
But then, suddenly out of nowhere, in 313, the new emperor, Constantine,
not only completely ends the persecutions, but he becomes a Christian.
Legend (and legends are often true)
says that Constantine had a vision of Christ
that led him to a huge victory and to his rise as sole Emperor.
Either way, Jesus showed up in a very unusual but powerful way.
___
Also, we can look at the 16th century.
The Church was filled with corrupt bishops and priests and popes.
Things got so bad that a bunch of priests in different countries
revolted and broke from the Church,
taking one-third of Christians with them in the Protestant Revolt.
But then, out of literally nowhere,
God led Catholics to discover the New World,
and, especially after the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
millions of the indigenous people began to convert to Catholicism.
___
Finally, one last example:
At the end of the 18th century the French Revolution
seemed to have destroyed the Church in France.
But then Jesus sent His mother, Mary, to revitalize the faith of the people:
first in 1830 to St. Catherine Labouré in Paris,
then in 1846 at La Salette,
and finally, in 1858 at Lourdes.
Again, Jesus not sleeping in the back of the boat of the Church as expected,
but seemingly coming out of nowhere in power.
Let’s go back to the boat.
The apostles were afraid when they saw Jesus.
They either didn’t or wouldn’t recognize Him
because of their very worldly assumptions about who He was.
So, they think He’s something evil: “It’s a ghost.”
Today, sometimes we see how things are and think it’s hopeless,
so bad that not even Jesus has the power to fix it.
Some see the waves of societal trends
and think we have to sort of accept the inevitable
and sink into the dark water,
so they let sin into the Church.
Some see that bending to society in the Church and think,
It’s all over. We’re going to sink.
Maybe we have to abandon the boat and go out on our own.
But Jesus says to us, as He said to the apostles in the boat,
“Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
These are words very similar to what He would tell them at the Last Supper:
“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage,
I have conquered the world.”
___
…And then Peter, as he was wont to do,
was the first to voice his understanding and said to Jesus,
“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
But notice even there, doubt: “If it is you…”
Jesus sees Peter’s doubt,
but in His mercy takes hold of Peter’s budding faith,
and commands him, “Come.”
Then Peter, the first pope, the first among the apostles, steps out.
What faith!
But not enough.
He looks around and sees the waves and the wind and thinks,
“What the heck am I doing? I can’t walk on water!”
He again allows the chaos of the world to dominate him,
and he succumbs to the power of that darkness and sinks into it.
How many times have we seen bishops and priests and even popes do this?
They start off with faith in Christ,
but then they try to apply this in the world, to step out on the waters of life,
and overwhelmed by the world, they lose sight of Christ and sink.
I think of the Second Vatican Council,
where so many bishops gathered in the Barque of Peter,
with faith and confidence in Jesus, made bold statements of faith.
But when they went home, and back into the world,
they too often lost sight of Jesus
and started to fall into the ways of world and sink.
But even then, millions of voices of the faithful
cried out in prayerful hope, “Lord, save me!”
When the doubting and falling Peter says this in the gospel, it tells us:
“Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter.”
You and I have doubts so often:
“Am I sinking? Is the church sinking?
Will the waves of the world conquer us?”
But, Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid. I have conquered the world.”
So even as we doubt, with the faith we do have, we call out to Him,
“Jesus, save me, save us, save the Barque of Peter.”
And Jesus is there to stretch out His hand and save us.
___
Then what happens in the gospel story?
“They got into the boat, [and] the wind died down.”
This brings us back to think about how the apostles went out without Jesus.
It reminds me of the Catholics today, especially certain bishops,
who try to remake the church without Jesus.
They read the words of Jesus in Scripture,
and they think they are outdated, or maybe simply wrong.
I remember the words of one bishop a few years back who said,
“We have to be more merciful than Jesus.”
Jesus says, “No divorce,” and they say, well, that’s an ideal, but not very practical.
Maybe the source of the problem in the Gospel story
is that the apostles set out without Jesus.
Now, Jesus probably did this on purpose
to show what would happen to the Church
if it tried to sail on the seas of life, the troubles of the world, without Him.
Disaster awaits.
But so does Jesus.
___
Now, if you’ve noticed, I’ve neglected the fifth symbol, the wind.
The Gospel tells us:
“The boat…was being tossed about by the waves,
for the wind was against it.”
Then, Peter sank, specifically because,
“He saw how strong the wind was, and he became frightened.”
In Scripture, especially in the gospels,
the wind usually symbolizes the Holy Spirit.
But in this case, is this wind the Holy Spirit or some other spirit?
Maybe what Scripture calls “unclean spirit,” “evil spirit,”
or the “spirit of the world”?
Recall the words of St John:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit,
but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…”
So, let’s test this spirit, the wind in the gospel today.
Look at today’s first reading.
God tells Elijah to go to a certain cave and wait for Him.
And it says,
“A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains
and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind.”
Rather, the Lord came in “a tiny whispering sound,”
or as it is sometimes translated, “a sound of a gentle blowing.”
Genesis tells us in the beginning,
“The Ruah [translated as wind or spirit] of God
was hovering over the waters.”
The Holy Spirit is not a spirit of turbulence and chaos, but of gentleness and peace.
Nowadays we hear people saying we need to listen to the spirit,
or we need to walk with the spirit.
Absolutely!
But again, what spirit?
A spirit of chaos that stirs up confusion in the Church,
or the Holy Spirit that brings the peace of Christ?
An evil spirit that brings sin or the Holy Spirit that brings us holiness in Jesus?
The spirit of the world twisted by the devil
or the spirit of Truth that is the Holy Spirit of Jesus?
When Jesus is not in the boat, the evil winds toss the boat about.
But when Jesus is in the boat,
“The wind died down,” or more directly translated, “the wind ceased.”
Jesus and the Holy Spirit do not bring chaos and turmoil, but order and peace.
All this is not to say that we need to wait
for some big spectacular miraculous intervention by Jesus
to fix the problems in the Church.
Rather, we need to trust that He will come in power and bring order and peace.
It will come in His time, and most probably in a way we least expect.
As we now prepare to enter more deeply into the mystery of the Holy Mass,
remember that although Jesus is always with His Church,
He comes to us in great power and unexpectedly in the Eucharist.
Not walking on waves, but walking under the appearance of bread and wine,
still as creator of the universe, and still commanding nature to conform to His will.
“This is my body.”
In this Eucharist, seeing the divine and universal might of Jesus,
let us remember and take to heart the words of Jesus from the waves,
words echoed at the first Mass, the Last Supper:
“Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
And as He enters into us, our bodies, in Holy Communion,
let us imitate the faith of Peter and the apostles in the power of Christ,
remembering the conclusion of today’s Gospel:
“Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, ‘Truly, you are the Son of God.’”