Put out into the deep waters!

Luke 5:1-11

Jesus was standing one day by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the crowd pressing round him listening to the word of God, when he caught sight of two boats close to the bank. The fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats – it was Simon’s – and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.’ ‘Master,’ Simon replied, ‘we worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.’ And when they had done this they netted such a huge number of fish that their nets began to tear, so they signalled to their companions in the other boat to come and help them; when these came, they filled the two boats to sinking point. When Simon Peter saw this he fell at the knees of Jesus saying, ‘Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.’ For he a  nd all his companions were completely overcome by the catch they had made; so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. But Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on it is men you will catch.’ Then, bringing their boats back to land, they left everything and followed him.

Food for thought!

Put out into deep water!

Jesus knows how to challenge us; to pull our legs. He challenged Peter and his companions. Night is the time for fishing and the proper place to cast the net is near the shore. This is what Peter knew; but if Jesus wished to fish by day light in the middle of the Lake, Simon was not too weary to try. Jesus sometimes tells us to do the contrary, to do what's against the common practice, to go against expectations, to do business not as usual.

When we follow the guidance of the Lord in our lives, we achieve results that will blow our minds. This is what we see in Peter's miraculous catch of fish. He and his men toiled all night long and caught nothing; they were following traditional and time worn methods. They were following their tradition, their common practice, their own minds as to where and how to throw the net. The result, in one word, was failure. But when they followed the Lord's guidance which, humanly speaking, did not make much sense (fishermen do not set the net in broad daylight), the result was a resounding success.

Simon was overwhelmed by the results; someone had just taught him to fish differently. "Put out into the deep waters." All along Peter was fishing in swallow waters, just like many of us do. We are afraid to go further into deep waters; we want to stay where we have always been, doing what we always did. It is to people like these that Jesus challenges to risk going further, to go deeper. Whatever your profession, whatever your job, if you go deeper enough into it, you'll catch.

  

The same principle applies in spiritual life; the nearer we come to God the more we see Him as He is and the more we see ourselves as we truly are. The closer we are to the source of light the more we notice the dirt we carry. If you don't see any wrong in yourself it is probably because you're too far away from the Lord; you're in the dark. In today's First Reading, Isaiah said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!” (Isaiah 6:5).

In today's Second Reading, Paul felt himself unfit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15:9). And in the Gospel, Peter fell down at Jesus' feet and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8).

The feeling of personal unworthiness is a sign that a soul has been touched by God. That is why humility is said to be the first and primary virtue in authentic spirituality. The feeling of personal worthiness and competence, not to talk of the feeling of self-righteousness and spiritual superiority, could be a sign that the soul has neither seen nor known God.

When the soul confesses its sinfulness and inadequacy before God, God reaches out and absolves the sinner and renders him or her competent to serve Him. In the case of Isaiah, one of the seraphs touched his lips with a burning coal taken from the altar of the temple and said to him, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out” (Isaiah 6:7). In the case of Simon Peter, Jesus said to him, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people” (Luke 5:10).

Beyond the feeling of personal unworthiness, there is another quality that the three people who are called to do God's work in today's readings have in common, and that is the availability to do God's will and the readiness to follow His directives. As soon as Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord asking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” his immediate response was: “Here am I; send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). In the case of Peter and his partners, we are told that “they left everything and followed him” (Luke 15:11) without looking back. And Paul threw himself with so much zeal into God's work that he worked harder than all those who were called before him, though as he is quick to point out, “it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Merely feeling unworthy and incompetent does not make us into people that God can work with. We must add to that the availability and willingness to go out there and do as Jesus tells us to do.