Activity

We ask:

• How were the apostles feeling on the boat?

• Why did they mistake Jesus for a ghost?

• Why do you think Peter wanted to go towards Jesus?

• At first, Peter started to walk on the water, but then he started to sink. Why?

• If you were Peter, what would you have done?

• What did Jesus do when Peter asked him to save him?

• What did the apostles do when Jesus and Peter went on the boat?

Peter could walk on water because he had faith in Jesus. To have faith means that one learns to trust. It is not always easy to trust someone. Through today’s activity, we will learn more about what it means to trust someone.

Choose one of the siblings. The one who is chosen stands in front of the parents, facing the other way (that is giving his back). He is to stand stiff. The adult stands behind. We ask him to let himself go and fall back, we will be ready to catch him.

What happened?

Was he willing to fall back? Why?

When I trust someone, if he tells me that he will catch me, I will not doubt it, I know that he will not let me fall. To trust someone, first I have to know him. If someone whom I did not know, had asked me to do this activity, I would not have been ready to do it. I would have been unsure that he would catch me. He may let me fall and hurt myself.

This is the invitation Jesus is making today. He wants us to get to know him more. When we know him better, we will understand that he always speaks the truth, he keeps his promises, and he always cares for us.

Jesus however, never promises that there would not be times when we are afraid, or that we would not go through difficult times. In fact, when Jesus calls Peter to him, the sea was still rough. Jesus promises that if like Peter, we ask him to save us, and we believe that he can do this, Jesus will give us the help we need. Jesus will not make the difficult situations vanish. Instead, he will help us to overcome them. The sea only calmed down when Jesus and Peter went on the boat, and not before.

What do you understand when you hear the expression "trust in Jesus"? Trusting Jesus means that we want to be near him, to know him better. It was not easy for Peter to leave the boat and approach Jesus, but he did it because he wanted to be near him. And this is what we have to do. To get closer to Jesus, we need to go to Church, read the bible, pray and spend time with him. We will not always feel like it. It could be that Peter would have preferred to stay on the boat, but he chose to go to Jesus. This teaches us that although it is good to get closer to Jesus and get to know him better, it will not always be easy. There will also be times when we will mess up. When Peter did not continue looking at Jesus, and he looked at the rough sea, and he noticed that he was walking on the water, he became afraid, he started to doubt how he could be doing that, he forgot that Jesus was there, he forgot that he had chosen right in wanting to go to Jesus and so he started to sink. At times, although we wish to make the right choices we do the exact opposite! But as long as like Peter, we turn back and trust Jesus again, all will be ok. As soon as he started to drown, Peter called to Jesus for help. This is what we should do. When we realise that we messed up, we turn back to Jesus, and we will find him waiting.

Whom do we trust? (those who love and care for us)

In the same way, we turn to Jesus because we know that he loves us and he will help us.

In the Bible we find various episodes of people who showed great faith in God and Jesus. During this week, every day, choose one of these characters and together with your family, either say the story of this person or read it from the Bible. Afterwards spend some time discussing the life of this person and how we can become like him. These are a few of the characters who showed great faith.

• Noah

• Abraham and Isaac

• Daniel in the den of lions

• Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego

• Moses

• David and Goliath

• The Annunciation

• The woman who was ill and bleeding for twelve years

• The centurion and the healing of this servant