Mary, the walking on the sea: peace of Christ in the storm

“I am; fear not.”After the sign of the loaves, the disciples cross the sea at night, shaken by the storm, and see Jesus walking on the water. Fear seizes them, until the voice of Jesus reaches them: “I am; do not be afraid.” This pericope, which could seem merely a miracle story, contains deep theology of faith in tribulation and illuminates, from an unexpected angle, the figure of Mary as a model of faith that perseveres when night is dark and the sea is stormy. The “do not be afraid” addressed to the disciples in John’s Gospel echoes the “do not fear, Mary” with which the angel inaugurated her vocation (Luke 1:30).I. The Sea, the Night, and ChaosIn biblical and patristic cosmology, the sea represents chaos, threat, and the power of forces beyond human control. The Psalter sings: “They who go down to the sea in ships… saw the works of the Lord and his wonders in the depths” (Psalm 107:23-24). The Book of Job describes the sea as the domain of Leviathan, a creature that only divine power can control (Job 41). And the Apocalypse will anticipate the escatological moment by stating that “the sea will no longer exist” (Revelation 21:1), the symbol of chaos will be definitively eliminated. Therefore, Jesus walking on the water is not simply a natural wonder: it is a theophany, a manifestation of divine power over chaos that only the Creator can wield.The night, “it was already dark and Jesus had not yet come to them” (John 6:17), enhances the symbolic dimension of the scene. In the Fourth Gospel, night is always the time of absence and temptation: Nicodemus comes to Jesus “at night” (John 3:2). Judas leaves the Upper Room and “it was night” (John 13:30). Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb “when it was still dark” (John 20:1). Night is the time when faith is put to the test, when there is no direct vision, when Christ’s presence is not perceptible to the senses, when the boat seems adrift without the Master aboard.Mary experienced this “night of faith” more deeply than any other disciple. Her longest and darkest night was Holy Saturday, the day between the Cross and the Resurrection, when the Son lay in the tomb and all seemed finally lost. The Gospels do not describe what Mary did on that day. But the theology of Holy Saturday, explored by Hans Urs von Balthasar in *Mysterium Paschale*, presents Mary as the only creature who kept faith alive during that “night” in its entirety: she who had kept the Word in her heart (Lk 2:51) did not lose it even when the Bearer of the Word lay dead in a stone tomb.Christian spiritual tradition, from Bernard of Clairvaux to John of the Cross, has identified the “night of faith” as one of the most fertile moments in spiritual life. It is in the “dark night” that faith is purified of all attachment to sensible consolation and becomes pure adherence to God’s Word. Mary, who traversed Holy Saturday without any external consolation, is the model of this purified faith, the faith that remains when everything that sustained it externally has disappeared.

II. “I am, fear not”: The Paschal Epiphany

“I am,” *Egō eimi*, is one of the most theologically laden formulas in the Fourth Gospel. In predicative statements (e.g., *”I am the light of the world,”* *”I am the door,”* *”I am the Good Shepherd”*), the formula reveals the identity of the Son. But there are also absolute uses, without a predicate, in which the formula echoes the divine Name of Ex 3:14: *”I am who I am.”* *Jn 6:20* is one of these absolute uses: Jesus walks on the waters and says *”I am,”* an affirmation that is not merely a statement of personal identity but of divine identity. He who dominates the sea is the Creator of the sea. He who walks on the waters is the Lord of the waters.”Do not be afraid,” (Do not fear, Fear not) is, in the New Testament, a formula of epiphany: it is what the angels say when they appear (Luke 1:13; 1:30; 2:10), it is what Jesus says when he rises from the dead (Matthew 28:10), and it is what the Risen One tells John in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 1:17). It is not a mere word of psychological comfort: it is the proclamation that God’s presence dispels fear because it is more real than any threat. The disciples’ fear on the sea is real. But Christ’s presence is even more real, and his voice is enough to turn the storm into calm.Mary was the first human creature to receive this “do not be afraid” in its most direct form: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God” (Luke 1:30). The angel does not deny Mary’s perturbation by the greeting; the text says that she was “perplexed” (diatarchei) by the salutation, but he proclaims that the presence of God, which precedes and surrounds her, is stronger than any cause for fear. This was the inaugural lesson of Mary’s life: Christian faith is not the absence of fear, but trust that God’s presence is always stronger than what frightens us. A lesson she will have to relearn, in increasingly demanding versions, throughout her life.In the context of Easter, “I am, do not be afraid” (Sou eu, não temais) attains its fullest resonance. The Risen One who appears in the Upper Room with his words of peace, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19; 21:21), is the same who walked on the waters. Easter peace is the fulfillment of what the sea episode foreshadowed: the presence of the Risen One transforms fear into peace, storm into calm, night into dawn. Mary, who was present at the appearance of the Risen One in the Upper Room (Acts 1:14; and implicitly John 20:19), received this peace as the definitive confirmation of “do not be afraid” that had inaugurated her vocation some thirty years earlier.

III. The “Star of the Sea” and the Faith that Guides

The Marian tradition, especially in medieval liturgical poetry, identified Mary with the *stella maris*, the star of the sea, precisely because she is the point of orientation for those who navigate the storms of existence. This title, popularized by Isidore of Seville and made famous by the medieval hymn *Ave Maris Stella*, expresses Mary’s maternal function: she does not calm the sea herself, but points to Him who dominates it. When the ship is frightened, when the storm seems overwhelming, Mary does not say “do not fear anything,” but says, as at Cana: “do what he tells you” (John 2:5), she points to the Son who is the only one who can walk on the waters and say “I am.”The hymn *Ave Maris Stella*, probably composed in the 9th century, is one of the most beautiful pieces of Marian liturgy. It invokes Mary as *”secure guide”* (monstra te esse matrem) and asks her to *”show the way”* to the Son. This role as guide does not replace the presence of Christ; it directs one to him. Mary, who knows the Son better than any other human being, knows where He is even in the darkest night. And her intercession is the star that shines when the guidance of other stars is lost in the storm. Theologically, the *stella maris* is an expression of Mary’s subordinate mediation: she who is always with the Son guides those who seek Him to where He is found.The nautical spirituality of this image has deep resonances for faith life. To navigate implies accepting the unpredictability of the sea. To trust the star implies having a stable reference point even when the horizon closes. Mary as *stella maris* is the stability that endures when everything oscillates: the faith that remained on the Sabbath when all others had lost their way is the same faith that, in times of crisis, continues to point to the risen Son as the only safe harbor.The history of Marian devotion in the context of shipwreck and sea peril, from the ancient invocations of Mediterranean sailors to the promises of Portuguese navigators in the 15th and 16th centuries, reflects a concrete spiritual experience: in times of crisis, when human effort fails, Mary is invoked as one who knows where her Son is and can present his need to the only one who can walk on the waters. This devotional experience has a solid theological foundation in the episode from John 6:16-21: where fear paralyses the disciples, Christ’s voice, whom Mary always guides, dissolves fear with his simple presence.IV. Faith as a Receptive Model for the ChurchIn the Johannine version of the episode, Peter does not leave the boat, unlike Matthew 14:28-31, where Peter’s attempt and near-fall are the focal narrative. In John, the disciples receive Jesus in the boat and immediately reach the shore. The faith that John narrates is the faith that receives, not the one that challenges or tests. This receptive faith, which receives the Master in the boat and discovers that they have already reached their destination, is the Marian faith par excellence: not the spectacular faith that asks to walk on the waters, but the silent faith that receives the Lord and lets him lead them to port.This distinction between receptive and “heroic” faith has significant implications for the Church. The Church’s temptation is often to want to “walk on the waters” herself, to try to solve her problems with human capabilities, without waiting for Christ to come near. Marian faith, on the other hand, consists in recognizing one’s own insufficiency and receiving the Lord when he draws near. “They took him into the boat,” this active reception is the correct response to the epiphany of “I am.”The ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council developed this intuition by describing the Church as the “People of God on the way,” a community that walks towards its destination, not by its own strength, but by the presence of the risen Lord who accompanies it. Mary, the “type of the Church” (Lumen Gentium), embodies this receptive faith.According to the Announcement (Luke 1:26-38), this is the model of this receptive and walking faith: it did not reach its destination through its own merits, but by having welcomed in its boat, its heart, and its womb, He who said, “I am, do not be afraid.”The paschal context confirms this reading: the Risen One who appears several times to the disciples over the forty days is not a spectacular appearance demanding a heroic response from them. It is a presence that offers itself to be welcomed, as it was welcomed by Mary at the Anunciation. Paschal faith is essentially a welcoming of the Risen One who gives himself. And Mary, who first welcomed Him in the Incarnation, is the permanent model of this paschal welcoming that the Church is called to repeat in each generation.May Stella Maris guide us through the storms of faith and life, always pointing to Him who walks on the waters and says: “I am, do not be afraid.”