There is a fascinating detail about earthquakes that engineers often mention. During a serious tremor, people rarely run in straight lines to the nearest exit. Even when the exit is obvious, panic makes human beings irrational. Some freeze. Some scream. Some grab the wrong things. In the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, rescue workers said that many people came out carrying absurd objects in panic: lampshades, television remotes, frying pans, even grocery bags, while leaving behind passports, money, and valuables including toddlers. Fear rearranges the brain.
The Reactions of Fear
We, human beings, become very strange under pressure. You know how it is during a strong turbulence on a plane, if you have experienced one. One person suddenly becomes an expert in aviation and starts diagnosing engine sounds. Another starts reciting prayers they have not prayed since First Communion. Someone else grips the armrest so tightly that the stranger next to them quietly begins planning their own funeral.
That is what makes the jailer in the first reading stand out. The earthquake comes, the prison doors fly open, and his mind instantly jumps to catastrophe. He assumes his life is over. And honestly, who can blame him? Roman jailers were held personally responsible for any escaped prisoners.
Do We Stay Put?
And then comes the strangest line in the whole passage. Paul shouts: “Do not harm yourself. We are all here.” Prisoners do not stay, they escape the first chance they get. We human beings do the same, we do not stay. We leave jobs, friendships, marriages, churches, and responsibilities at the first shaking of the walls.
People do not stay put anywhere anymore. We leave conversations halfway through because our phone buzzed. Even at restaurants, half of us cannot sit through dinner without announcing, “Let’s beat the traffic.” We leave relationships because somebody annoyed us for twelve minutes. Some people leave church parking lots faster than Formula One drivers. The final hymn has not even reached the second verse and tires are already screeching toward Dunkin Donuts.
Learning to Be Present
Yet Paul and Silas, they stay. The jailer expected prisoners running away. Instead, he found people who stayed. And sometimes the most Christian thing we can do is exactly that: stay at the bedside, stay in the family, stay faithful to prayer, stay kind when bitterness would be easier, stay calm when everybody else is losing their minds. When somebody’s world is collapsing, they look beside them and realize, Thank God, this person did not run away.
What do people hear from us when life shakes? Panic? Complaining? Endless negativity? Viktor Frankl once wrote that in the concentration camps, the people who helped others survive were often not the smartest or the strongest. They were the ones who could still create hope inside darkness. A joke. A shared crust of bread. A hand on the shoulder. A reminder that somebody still cared.
That is what Paul and Silas are doing in prison. They are creating humanity in an inhuman place. Our invitation today is also to stay, because people around us are surviving earthquakes internally. And many of them are waiting for one voice in the dark to say, “Do not be afraid. I am still here.”
- Today’s Readings
- Father Boby’s inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center today. You can watch the entire Mass on the Family Rosary Video streams channel on YouTube.
- Join the Rosary (11:30 am ET) and Mass (Noon ET) livestreams on the Family Rosary YouTube or Facebook page, Monday – Friday. Make time for a prayer break in your busy day.
