(Mk 4:35-41)

Excita, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni

"Excita, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni" - with these and similar words the Church's liturgy repeatedly prays [...].

These invocations were probably formulated in the period of the decline of the Roman Empire. The disintegration of the supporting orders of law and of the basic moral attitudes, which gave them strength, caused the breaking of the banks that had hitherto protected peaceful coexistence between men. A world was passing away. Frequent natural cataclysms further increased this experience of insecurity. No force could be seen to halt this decline. All the more insistent was the invocation of God's own power: that He would come and protect men from all these threats.

"Excita, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni". Today, too, we have many reasons to associate ourselves with this prayer [...] The world with all its new hopes and possibilities is, at the same time, distressed by the impression that the moral consensus is dissolving, a consensus without which legal and political structures do not function; consequently, the forces mobilised to defend these structures seem doomed to failure.

Excita - the prayer is reminiscent of the cry addressed to the Lord, who was sleeping in the disciples' storm-tossed boat that was close to sinking. When His powerful word had calmed the storm, He rebuked the disciples for their little faith (cf. Mt 8:26 and par.). He wanted to say: in yourselves faith has slept. He also wants to say the same thing to us. Even in us so often faith sleeps. Let us therefore pray to Him to awaken us from the sleep of a faith that has become tired and to restore to faith the power to move mountains - that is, to give right order to the things of the world.

[Pope Benedict, to the Roman Curia 20 December 2010].

The whole Gospel of Mark is an articulate answer to the question: 'who is Jesus?' (v.41).

The direction of travel imposed by Jesus on his followers seems to go against the grain, and brazenly breaks the rules accepted by all.

While the disciples were fondling nationalist desires, the Master begins to make it clear that He is not the vulgarly expected Messiah, restorer of the defunct empire of David.

[Or of the Caesars, then struggling for succession under the eyes of the Roman community of Mk: Galba, Otone, Vitellius, Vespasian].

The Kingdom of God is open to all mankind, who in those turbulent times - torn apart by the swift but bloody civil war that followed Nero's follies - sought security, welcome, points of reference.

Everyone could find home and shelter there (Mk 4:32b).

But the still Judaizing apostles and church veterans seemed averse to Christ's proposals; they remained insensitive to an overly broad idea of fraternity.

Compared to the teaching received from the fathers of the ancient tradition, the young Rabbi's proposal displaced them.

It is a problem that is still alive and very serious.

The teaching and reminder imposed on Jesus' intimates was to pass to the other shore (Mk 4:35; Lk 8:22), that is, not to keep for oneself.

The riches of the Father were to be communicated to the pagans, commonly considered unclean and infamous.

Yet his people did not want to know about risky disproportions, which would make the unpredictable action of the Son of God stand out.

They were calibrated to common religiosity customs and a circumscribed ideology of power.

So to exorcise the danger of the mission - and having to accommodate people, rework situations, welcome surprises that would agitate them [questioning them] - they attempted to take the Master hostage (v.36).

From the very beginning, the resistance to the divine commission and the resulting lacerating internal debate stirred up a great storm in the assemblies of believers.

"And behold, there came a great stirring in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves" (Mt 8:24).

"And there came a great gale of wind, and the waves rolled into the boat, so that the boat was already filled" (Mk 4:37).

The storm affected only the disciples, the only ones dismayed; not Jesus: "but he was asleep" (Mt 8:24).

"In the stern" (Mk 4:38), that is, at the helm, leading.

And "on the pillow" (Mk 4:38): this is the Risen One - well alive although apparently absent.

What happens "inside" is not a mere reflection of what happens "outside"! This is the error to be corrected.

Such identification blocks and makes life chronic, starting with the handling of emotionally relevant situations - which have their own meaning.

They carry a meaningful appeal, they introduce a different eye and dialogue.

Even from the peace of the divine condition that dominates chaos, the Lord calls attention to and rebukes the apostles, accusing them of not having "Faith" (v.40).

Here by Faith is meant an ounce of risk of love - like a "mustard seed" (v.31) - to be brought to humanity for renewal. 

In short, we are confused, embarrassed, and the chaos of schemes rages on, not excluding healthy selfishness for our destiny?

We are paradoxically on the right path of the Exodus - but we must not get caught up in fear.

In Him, we are imbued with a different view of danger.

Says the Tao Tê Ching (xxii): "The saint does not see by himself, therefore he is enlightened. Even in straits.

Indeed, it seems that Jesus expressly wanted the dark moments of confrontation and doubt for the apostles (Mk 4:35; Lk 8:22b).

This is also true for us, even if we were church leaders; otherwise there will be no cleansing from repetitive convictions.

Textbook expectations and the habit of setting up conformist harmonies block the flowering of what we are and hope for.

Especially what is annoying or even 'against' has something decisive to tell us.

Even in the little boat of the churches (Mk 4:36), discomfort must express itself:

"And He was in the stern, on the pillow, asleep. And they woke him up and said to him, "Master do you not care that we are lost?" (v.38).

"And drawing near they woke him, saying, Lord, save us, we are lost" (Mt 8:25).

All this is to revive the essence of each person and of the community itself.

To introduce the hidden or repressed change, and to activate it in the most effective way.

In every situation, it is good to be activated by contact with the hidden or primordial energies.

More than opposing frictions and conflicting external events, anxiety, impression and anguish come from the very fear of facing the normal or decisive questions of existence.

This is out of mistrust: feeling in danger perhaps only because we perceive ourselves to be intimately undeveloped, incapable of other conversation, of having the guts to discover and rework, convert, or remodel.

The fatigue of questioning ourselves and the suffering that the adventure of Faith holds, will also fade amidst the discomfort of the rough sea - which precisely does not want us to return to 'those of before'.

It is enough to disengage ourselves from the idea of stability, even religious stability, and listen to life as it is, embracing it.

Recognising it as one's own even in its crowd of bumps, bitterness, dashed hopes of harmony, sorrows...

Engaging with this flood of new emergencies, and encountering one's own profound nature.

The best vaccine against the anxieties of the adventure together with Christ on the changing waves of the unexpected, will be precisely not to avoid worries upstream - on the contrary, to go towards them and welcome them; to recognise them, to let them happen.

Even in times of global crisis, the apprehensions that seem to want to devastate us, come to us as preparatory energies of other joys that wish to break through.

The upheavals are arranging new cosmic attunements; for wonderment starting with ourselves. As a present guide, and an appeal from beyond.

Our little boat is in an inverted stability, upside down, unequal - uncertain, inconvenient - yet energetic, prickly, capable of reinventing itself.

It may even be excessive, but it is disruptive. And by observing in others their own dark sides.

For a proposal of Tenderness without a plan, not corresponding; which is not a relaxation zone.

Love that rhymes with terrible anxiety, which, however, puts us in immediate contact with our deepest layers - and peripheries!

To internalise and live the message:

On what occasions have you found easy what previously seemed impossible?

Do you ever get in the way?

Is your life the same or different - able to address and accommodate the distant or new?

Some other providence, which you ignore

"It is good not to fall, or to fall and rise again. And if you do happen to fall, it is good not to despair and not to become estranged from the love the Sovereign has for man. For if he wills, he can do mercy to our weakness. Only let us not turn away from him, let us not be distressed if we are forced by the commandments, and let us not be disheartened if we come to nothing [...].

Let us neither hurry nor retreat, but always begin again [...].

Wait for him, and he will show you mercy, either by conversion or by trials, or by some other providence that you do not know."

[Peter Damascene, Second Book, Eighth Discourse, in La Filocalia, Turin 1982, I,94].