There are many analogies in the Bible, and even Jesus would frequently use them to help illustrate a profound spiritual truth.
Many of the saints followed Jesus’ example and used their own analogies in hopes of encouraging the believers in their care.
St. Gregory Nazianzen provides one such analogy that can help us seek after peace in the midst of our anxiety.
Rocks vs. seashells
St. Francis de Sales relates St. Gregory’s illustration in his Introduction to the Devout Life:
[E]verything in the world speaks silently but clearly to the lovers of God of their love, exciting them to holy desires, whence gush forth aspirations and loving cries to God.
St. Gregory Nazianzen tells his flock, how, walking along the seashore, he watched the waves as they washed up shells and sea weeds, and all manner of small substances, which seemed, as it were, rejected by the sea, until a return wave would often wash part thereof back again; while the rocks remained firm and immoveable, let the waves beat against them never so fiercely.
The saint then explains the significance of this image:
And then the saint went on to reflect that feeble hearts let themselves be carried hither and thither by the varying waves of sorrow or consolation, as the case might be, like the shells upon the seashore, while those of a nobler mold abide firm and immoveable amid every storm;—whence he breaks out into David’s cry, “Lord, save me, for the waters are gone over my soul; deliver me from the great deep, all Thy waves and storms are gone over me;” for he was himself then in trouble by reason of the ungodly usurpation of his See by Maximus.
The analogy used by St. Gregory is reminiscent of Jesus’ parable of the house built on sand.
In many ways the message is the same: plant yourself firmly on the rock of Jesus Christ.
Whenever we feel buffeted by the waves of this world, we need to remember that only the rock of Jesus Christ can save us from perishing.
St. Gregory knew this as well, which is why he cried out, “Lord, save me, for the waters are gone over my soul; deliver me from the great deep.”
There is no getting around the storms of this life, but what we can control is how we react to them, not letting ourselves be tossed away like a seashell into the even greater storms at sea.
And today we celebrate...