Shaken

“This night, all of you will have your faith in Me shaken...” Matthew 26:31

Jesus knew His disciples would have a difficult time continuing to believe in Him that night of the Passover. Although Peter said to Him in reply, “Though all may have their faith in You shaken, mine will never be,” Jesus knew Peter would deny Him three times. Sure enough, before the night was over, Peter had said he did not know Jesus three times. Peter wept bitterly at his betrayal of His master and Lord. 

We can say these are times that try men’s souls. We ask God why are You allowing this to happen? Almost ever day we hear of good men and women dying. After intubating his wife because she had difficulty breathing, Dr. Dennis Tudtud also contracted Covid 19. His wife, Dr. Helen Tudtud passed away last Saturday, and he followed her the next Tuesday. Their heartbroken son said that his father was so generous and selfless he would pay for some of his patients’ chemotherapy himself. This scenario is repeated all over the world, elderly parents dying one after the other, husbands, wives, neighbors, good friends. Why God? 

Jesus knows that these are times that will test our faith, that will shake our trust in Him just like that night of the Passover. After the meal, He led the disciples to Gethsemane, where He told them to keep watch with Him and pray for an hour. He always found them asleep! I am sure if they prayed with Him, they would have been stronger and would have been given to grace to understand. And so it is with us. 

We need to pray for grace even if we do not deserve it. Grace is power. St. Paul wrote, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). We know that St. Paul was a powerhouse of the early Church, but it was the grace of God working in him that made him what he was.  Like the apostles and St. Paul, we need grace to get us through these dark times with our faith stronger than ever.