Elijah goes up to the Horeb to look for the God he seems to have lost, the God he feels betrayed by and abandoned. He ascends towards the mountain with the tacit hope of finding the God of Moses, who had manifested himself in grandiose signs on that mountain, according to Exodus 19. Instead Elijah will meet God in a different sign, in the voice of a “subtle silence”, in a “empty silence”, which empties Elijah of his expectations and pretensions to fill him with a different manifestation of God, and the prophet must turn towards this manifestation in order to find himself. Peter on the lake has a similar experience: he too must empty himself of his pretensions and of the presumption that he has become able to walk on the water; he must instead find the faith of those who know how to shout “Lord, save me”. Like Elijah, we meet the Lord in a silence that empties us of trusting in ourselves and in false images of God; like Peter, we meet the Lord in the cry with which we invoke his salvation. Peter can walk on the water only as long as his gaze is fixed on Jesus; sinks when he starts to see more: the wind, himself, his own abilities. Doubting faith is a distraction, sees danger and sees itself, without seeing the Lord any more and recognizing in him the truth of what we are and what we live. True faith is that hand that grasps the hand of the Lord. In that grasp we find the measure of who we are, and the possibility of staying firm in our trials.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey