'Jesus immediately reached out his hand . . .' Sunday Reflections, 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

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Salvation of Peter, 1366-67, Andrea da Firenze
Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella, Florence [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 
Gospel Matthew 14:22-33 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” continue gospel reading>

Fr William Doyle SJ  Mar. 1873 - Aug. 1917

During the last week or two there have been many commemorative events recalling the beginning of the Great War one hundred years ago. 97 years ago, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August, Corporal Lawrence Dowd (37), an older half-brother of my maternal grandmother, Annie Dowd Collins, was killed near Ieper (Ypres), Belgium, in the Third Battle of Ypres, often referred to simply as 'Passchendaele'. I was the first relative to locate his grave, in 2001, 84 years after his death.
Full post here.

[I was away over the weekend as part of a team giving a Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend. I seem to have forgotten to post the above here. I used some of the material here in my post on 6 August about finding my great-uncle's grave in Flanders 84 years after his death.]]

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