Courage! It is I!
19th Sunday A
Cobh
9 August 2026
My friends,
Often, we find that out of the most dire and difficult situations, individuals of extraordinary courage and insight come to the fore. Such was the case many times in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
One such case was that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian who went to his death because of his Christian faith. His best-known book is entitled the “Cost of Discipleship”. His experience of the vision and operation of an atheistic state moved him to think deeply about the challenge of Christian faith in a secular society.
In his letters from prison shortly before he was executed, he wrote,
“We must live in the world as if God did not exist. God lets us know that we must live as people who manage without God … With and in the presence of God, we live without God… Herein lies the decisive difference of Christianity from any other religion. Our religious sense directs us, in times of need, to the power of God in the world.”
My friends, the reality today is that human beings have learned to live without God: Without God yet with a sense of ethics, aesthetic sensibility and solidarity. In that sense, God is not necessary in today’s world.
My friends, these thoughts seem fitting as we hear and see examples of famous figures like Elijah and Peter turning to the Lord in prayer – each in their different circumstances in search of the Lord’s presence with them in life.
In truth it is no different for any one of us gathered here in prayer. We too search, like Elijah, to sense the pressure of the Lord – for Elijah, he was not in the powerful wind, in the earthquake or in the fire, rather sensed in the gentle breeze.
With Peter and the disciples in the boat tossed in the turbulent waters it was no less a quest for reassurance of the Lord watching over them – they would welcome the invitation, Courage! It is I! Be not afraid. The one with faith of that kind is truly blest.
The world we increasingly experience lives without a sense of God. Technology and self-reliance has made us so self-assured that ‘mystery’ is only waiting to be solved or dissolved by human ingenuity. In that sense the Divine, the Transcendent, features low down, if at all in daily life.
We increasingly find journalists and commentators who when making commentary on Catholic liturgy, clearly are ignorant of its nature and purpose. It simply reflects the desacralization of many life experiences that allowed for the inclusion of its spiritual dimension. We shouldn’t be surprised because if one lives without God for all intent and purpose, it isn’t surprising then that people are increasingly uneasy with the very idea of faith, belief and the prayer that flows from it.
In the house there is a plaque with the simple statement, “Bidden or not Bidden. God is present”. Whether we choose or not, God is present to the world. The question for us and for our families is, do we choose to be aware of and alert to Him in our life?
A good test is simple, do we choose to pray in anyway together, big or small. If we do – we are likely to find strength and consolation in the Lord’s words to Peter as came to him across the water,
“Courage! It is I! Be not afraid”
