He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 26. Why are you fearful, having me with you? Do you suppose that sleep can take from me the knowledge of your danger, or the power of relieving you? A.—He commanded the winds. Christ shewed himself Lord and Master of the sea and winds. His words in Saint Mark (4:39,) demonstrate his authority: Rising up he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be still. Witham.—As before our Lord restored Peter’s mother-in-law on the spot, not only to health, but to her former strength; so here he shews himself supreme Lord of all things, not only by commanding the winds to cease, but, moreover, by commanding a perfect calm to succeed. Chry. hom. xxix. How many times has he preserved his Catholic Church, when (to all human appearance, and abstracting from his infallible promises) she has been in the most imminent danger of perishing? How many times by a miracle, or interposition of his omnipotence, less sensible indeed, but not less real, has he rescued our souls, on the point of being swallowed up in the infernal abyss? A.—He commands the mute elements to be subservient to his wish. He commands the sea, and it obeys him; he speaks to the winds and tempests, and they are hushed; he commands every creature, and they obey. Man, and man only, man honoured in a special manner by being made after the image and likeness of his Creator, to whom speech and reason are given, dares to disobey and despise his Creator. Saint Augustine hom. in Mat.
From this allegory of the ship and the storm, we may take occasion to speak of the various senses in which the words of Scripture may be occasionally taken.… The sense of Scripture is twofold, literal and spiritual. The literal is that which the words immediately signify. The spiritual or mystic sense is that which things expressed by words mean, as in Genesis 22, what is literally said of the immolation of Isaac, is spiritually understood of Christ; and in Coloss. 2:12, by the baptism of Christ, Saint Paul means his burial. The spiritual sense in its various acceptations, is briefly and accurately given in the following distich:
Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.