On the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time in 2011 I attended mass at St. Peter and Paul, Naperville with Fr. Josh Miller preaching. The gospel concerned Jesus walking on water. But the point of the sermon was not Jesus's actions but the actions of Peter.

For those of you unfamiliar with this Jesus has sent the disciples across the lake and in the middle of the night He comes walking across the water towards the boat. This, as one might imagine, freaks the disciples out: They think it's a ghost. Jesus calls to them telling them it is He. But Peter is unsure and asks, "If it really is you Lord, call to me so I can come to you across the water." So Jesus does and Peter starts walking on the water.

Given this bizarre situation it's not unexpected that Peter realizes what's happening and that he walking on water in the midest of a storm. He panics and immediately starts to sink. And this requires Jesus to save him.

Fr. Joss's comment is that we can learn from this: When we take our focus of the Lord and put it on ourselves we sink into the storms of life.

Fr. went on to say that although he is a big Sinatra fan he feels the morally worst song in the world is "I did it my way." He described it as the national anthem of hell. It focuses on self alone and neglects all the relations huamns need in this world especially with God.

I felt this is a very important point: We are really not that big a deal in life. And if we want to trancend our human reality the only place to look is to God.

It was shortly after this sermon I ran across a news story on a meeting of religious where they were going to practice silence to see if they might come up with a different way of addressing their communities problems. One commentator on the news story said they were struck by the absence of any reference by these religious to God. They didn't appear to be praying so much as engaging in a New Age approach to meditation. And the comment was "They appear to be praying before a mirror when they should be praying in front of a window."

Made sense to me. Now I just have to work on not being self focused.