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There is an old story that has often been re-told in especially the Eastern Orthodox part of the church. According to the tale, a devout abbot from a monastery decided to take a prolonged spiritual retreat in a small cabin located on a remote island in the middle of a large lake. He told his fellow monks that he wanted to spend his days in prayer so as to grow closer to God. For six months he remained on the island with no other person seeing him or hearing from him in all that time. But then one day, as two monks were standing near the shore soaking up some sunshine, they could see in the distance a figure moving toward them. It was the abbot, walking on water, and coming toward shore. After the abbot passed by the two monks and continued on to the monastery, one of the monks turned to the other and said, "All these months in prayer and the abbot is still as stingy as ever. After all, the ferry costs only 25 cents!"

Humor aside, the point of the story is that it's amazing how easily we may sometimes miss the significance of something that is right in front of us. We think we know the meaning of this incident of Jesus' walking on the water, but do we really?

Did you know that the bathtub was invented in 1850? The telephone was invented in 1875. "Just think," someone said, "You could have sat in the bathtub for 25 years without the phone ringing."  It never fails, does it? Just when you think you will have some peace and quiet, the telephone rings, or the baby cries, or a water pipe breaks, or the boss calls you into her office. Peace is a precious commodity and it is so, so elusive. 

Dante, the great poet of the Renaissance, was exiled from his home in Florence, Italy. Depressed by this cruel turn of fate, he decided to walk from Italy to Paris, where he could study philosophy, in an effort to find a clue to the meaning of life. In his travels, Dante found himself a weary pilgrim, forced to knock at the door of Santa Croce Monastery to find refuge from the night. A surly brother within was finally aroused. He came to the door, flung it open, and in a gruff voice asked, "What do you want?" Dante answered in a single word, "Peace." 

H. G. Wells was one of the best educated, most creative men of our time. He was also an atheist. He said in his autobiography: "I cannot adjust my life to secure any fruitful peace.  Here I am at sixty-five still seeking for peace...Dignified peace...is just a hopeless dream." 

Peace is a beautiful word, is it not? Yet it is a word that is a stranger to many people today. The fast-paced life that many of us lead provides us with an unprecedented measure of material possessions, but it does not provide us with peace. Stress is our constant companion, anxiety haunts our dreams. What if we should be downsized out of a job, what if we were ill for a prolonged period of time, what if our next project is a failure? The disciples were not the only ones to long for peace in a raging storm. 

Where do you find peace? That is the longing of every heart. The experience of the disciples is an experience we will all have eventually " out in a boat in a terrible storm and no peace in sight...or is there?

Have you heard the story about the man who ordered a tree house over the internet? When the box arrived, it had printed on the top the words that have become every parent's nightmare: "Some assembly required."

 The man began to assemble the tree house (but would you believe it?) as he laid out all the parts on the floor and began reading the instructions, he realized (to his dismay) that the instructions were indeed for a tree house? but the parts were for a sail boat!!

It was Julian of Norwich who wrote those inspired words that 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.' They are words that are particularly poignant tonight because they sum up the transformation in the followers of Jesus that we celebrate on Ascension Day, for on this day strange, as it may seem we celebrate Christ's leaving his disciples.

But his leaving them is not a sombre occasion. It is full of joy and hope and reminds us how their lives had changed, of how they had come to trust in God's ultimate purpose for them and believe that all will indeed be well because Christ will always be with them.

Mothering Sunday in the UK is centuries old. It goes back to the time of early Christians in England who celebrated a Mothers festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent in honour of the Virgin Mary.

There’s a charming story that Thomas Wheeler, CEO of the Mutual Life Insurance Company tells on himself: He and his wife were driving along an interstate highway when he noticed that their car was low on fuel. Wheeler got off the highway at the next exit and soon found a rundown gas station with just one gas pump. He asked the lone attendant to fill the tank and check the oil; then went for a little walk around the station to stretch his legs.

Today's Gospel reading actually begins in the very same place of the very same Gospel as the one assigned for the Second Sunday of Advent. Only five weeks later and we find ourselves right back where we started. It's as if Christmas never came after all. And if we're honest with ourselves that feels about right, right now. Before we know it, we're back in the wilderness. Before we know it, we're back in line waiting for what John offers: forgiveness for our sins and a thorough dunking in the grace of God. And, yet, even as we're going under again, we know that sooner or later we'll be right back here holding our breath for a miracle. After all, that is the way it has always been. That is the way we have always been. Why should we expect it to be any different this time around?

Hanging lights on a Christmas tree can be most stressful. Some nice person on the Internet has even made a list of Things Not to Say When Hanging Lights on the Christmas Tree. Let me read some of them:
"Up a little higher. You can reach it. Go on, try." 
"What on earth do you do to these lights when you put them away every year? Tie them in knots?" 
"You've got the whole thing on the tree upside-down. The electric plug thing should be down here at the bottom, not up at the top." 
"I don't care if you have found another two strings, I'm done! " 
"You've just wound ‘em around and around--I thought we agreed it shouldn't look like a spiral this year?" 
"Have you been drinking?". 
"Where's the cat?"

As children we all had to study for and take a "vocabulary tests" - learning a new list of words, their spelling and definitions, every week. As we continued on in school, read more books and studied more subjects, our vocabulary naturally expanded.

The great thing and the hard thing about a truly "living language"; like English, is that it is always changing, adopting, adapting, and adding new words, new concepts, new elements. 

How many words do you use in everyday discussions in 2014 that a few years ago would have had no meaning whatsoever? When did you first learn to speak "coffee"; so that you could communicate your beverage choice with the barista. Phrases such as "venti, black-eye, half-cap, mocha frappuchino"; that would have been complete gibberish a couple decades ago now come tripping off the tongue without need for an interpreter.

Easter is late this year—a day short of the latest date possible—. In fact, the factors that determine the date of the Church’s prime moveable feast are so unusual this year that an eighth Sunday is an astronomical and liturgical rarity. There was no Eighth Sunday in 2008 or 2005 or even 2002. This week’s reading of Matthew 6—rare in the Sunday cycle but familiar in our hearing—couldn’t be more timely.

Who among us has not experienced spiritual blindness in one form or another?

When we put ourselves before others, we are blind.

When we hold grudges and refuse to forgive, we are blind.

When we do what is easy instead of what is right, we are blind.

A first year student in a Catholic seminary was told by the dean that he should plan to preach the sermon in chapel the following day. He had never preached a sermon before, he was nervous and afraid, and he stayed up all night, but in the morning, he didn’t have a sermon. He stood in the pulpit, looked out at his classmates and said “Do you know what I am going to say?” All of them shook their heads “no” and he said “Neither do I. The service has ended. Go in peace.”

ln his farewell address, as Jesus summarizes his teachings one last time, he also reassures his bewildered disciples that they will not be left on their own, abandoned to fend for themselves, to rely on their own resources and their own wits. Maybe, though, we all need to know exactly what the expectations are. We want to measure up, fulfil our obligations, and make the grade. So what does Jesus tell his disciples to do? He tells them to keep his commandments, and it's no surprise that "love" is in the very same sentence with "obey my commandments."

We remember today Saints Peter and Paul who guided the early church just after the time of
Jesus. Both died as martyrs for the faith in Rome, in the early 60’s, just thirty years after the
death of Jesus.