Peter's Barque Cannot Sink
The following is a sermon by the Very Rev Dr Arendzen, and it was published in a Catholic newpaper - we know not which one for sure - it was cut out and kept in a book which changed hands at a parish Sale of Work. The inside of the book identifies its previous owner as our late sister in Christ, Mairi Maciver, Stornoway.
But Jesus was asleep. It was calm when they left the shore of the lake, the apostles had thrown a few garments and rugs together to make a pillpw for the head of Jesus, who was lying down in the rear of the small craft and He had soon closed His eyes and had fallen asleep. A storm had now arisen , one of those sudden, dangerous sqalls, which still are the terror of the sailor, big waves had thrown themselves over the open boat, which had taken much water ans was tossed about hither and thither, but Jesus remained asleep.
Strange is this deep sleep of Our Lord! His tired nature had been overcome and all the senses of His human body were immersed in forgetfulness. His disciples, in rough simplicity and almost reproachfully awake Him and say; We are going down, does it not concern you? The disciples as yet did not understand that Jesus is God and God never sleeps.; Jesus is man and as man He truly sleeps, but even so His human sould ever sees the face of His Father in heaven, ever sees the Godhead, and in the Godhead all this world as in a mirror.
His bodily sense did not act, but His mind was in ineffible light. But the disciples did not as yet understand. In a sense we now understand more than they did then, but, notwithstanding our knowledge we are often men of little faith and we are afraid even as they were, though Jesus was with them.
It seems to us as if Jesus must be asleep and therefore unable to know or, should He know, have ceased to care as if it did not concern Him that we are in peril. Some people are so pessimistic amongst the present flood of unbelief, atheism, hatred and cruelty that they thing Christianity is being overwhelmed and coming to an end, as if Jesus was asleep in the barque of Peter and nothing could awaken Him.
They are men of little faith and forget that the Church of Christ is never out of the mind of Christ, that Christ has pledged His word; Lo I shall be with you always till the consummationi of the world; with you not inactive, helpless or careless, but with you all the might of My power in heaven and upon the earth.
My eyes may seem to close, but My church will ever be before Me, she is the very apple of My eye. Hence we Catholics know that the ship of Holy Church cannot founder and sink and this blessed knowledge is often strongest in simple folk.
Well known is the story of the Catholic peasant who in 1800, when the Holy See had been vacant for over a year, was taunted by another unbelieveing peasant saying; "I bet you, you never will have another Pope, the Popedom is finished." The Catholic peasant took the bet; the winner to choose and take the finest beast of the other's heard. When Pius VII was duly elected, the happy winner drove away the most magnificent beast from his rivals field. AFter a few days he was seen rather grluctantly and grumbingly driving it back. When asked why, he answered; I could not keep it in concience, the bet was not fair - You see I knew!
Let us beware lest we should take up a sort of defeatist attitude and think that all is lost, and fill the aire with lamentations. When we see in some newspaper or periodical some article with the startling heading; Has Christianity Failed? Let us recognise it for what it mostly is; insidious and specious propoganda by unbelievers, propoganda by suggestion, propaganda by treating as an open question what is not open to question at all.
True, all the little man-built craf on the world's sea, such as Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Calvinism, Methodism, Photianism and the so-called national churches may perish, they have no guarantee of permanence against the storm of human sin and error, but the ship that carries Christ, the barque of Peter, cannot sink; it will plough its way through the waves until eternity; having crossed the lake of human affairs, it will cast ancho in the harbour of God.