Don’t expect faith to make life easier, says the pope

Pope Francis reflected on Sunday’s Gospel reading by saying that faith in the Lord and his Word doesn’t take away life’s storms.

The pope was speaking about the passage in which Peter gets out of the boat and walks on the water, only to be distracted by the storm and find his faith faltering.

Faith “doesn’t open up a path where everything is easy and calm,” the Holy Father explained.

Instead, he said, faith “gives us the security of a Presence.”

“Don’t forget this,” Francis told the faithful gathered to pray the midday Angelus. “Faith gives us the security of a Presence — the presence of Jesus — a Presence that pushes us to overcome existential storms; the certainty of a hand that grasps us to help us face difficulties, showing us the way, even in darkness.”

The pope added that the episode recounted in the Gospel also has a lesson for the Church herself.

He described the Scripture as a “marvelous image” of the “reality of the Church of all times: a barque that, along its journey, must also confront contrary winds and storms, which threaten to sink it.”

What saves the Church is not the courage and qualities of its people. “The guarantee against the tempest is faith in Christ and His word,” he said.

“On this barque, we are secure,” Pope Francis promised, “despite our miseries and difficulties.”