For most of his public ministry, Jesus’
pulpit was the great outdoors. A hillside, a boat, an open road. Today we see
Jesus teaching the people from the shore of Lake Galilee. As with any popular
public figure, everyone wanted to see him close-up, to touch him. With the
crowd pressing in on him, Jesus gets into Peter’s boat and asked him to put out
a short distance from the shore which prevented the crowds from pressing in too
close. When he had finished speaking, he gave Simon Peter the command that can
apply to all of us: “Put out into deep water.” He told Peter to lower his nets
for a catch. Peter and the others knew that night was the best time to fish,
not the morning. Besides, they had worked all night and caught nothing.
However, out of respect for Jesus they did as he has asked. To their surprise, they caught such an incredible number of fish that their nets were tearing.
Peter was so overwhelmed that he fell on his knees before Jesus and asked the
Lord to leave him, for he was a sinful man. Peter had addressed Jesus as
“Master”, now he called him “Lord.” Peter’s sense of God’s awesome presence was
almost more than he could bear.
We see a similar story in our first reading
today from Isaiah. When summoned by God Isaiah is terrified as he remembers his
sinfulness. He dreamed of six-winged heavenly beings called Seraphim singing
before God, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts! All the earth is filled
with his glory.” Holiness is the essential quality of God, his utter
transcendence. The Catechism explains it like this: “Faced with God’s
fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own insignificance.
Moses takes off his sandals and veils his face in the presence of God’s
holiness. Isaiah cries out: ‘Woe is me! I am lost; for I am a man of unclean
lips.’ Peter exclaims, that he is a sinful man. But because God is holy, he can
forgive the man who realizes that he is a sinner before him. The apostle John
says likewise: ‘We shall . . . reassure our hearts before him whenever our
hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything’
(1 Jn 3:19-20), CCC 208.”
There was a popular belief that seeing God
would lead to one’s death. “You cannot see God and live” (Ex 33:20). The
reaction of Isaiah, who was so overwhelmed by his sinfulness is almost comical:
“I’m doomed!” But God took the initiative and had one of the Seraphim take a
coal from the altar of incense and touch his lips so that he would be purified and
worthy of God’s call to be a prophet. Isaiah, now ready for his mission
exclaims: “Here I am, send me!” Throughout Scripture, we see that sin and
failure are not obstacles to God’s call. He calls imperfect people to do his
work, even saints.
As he did with Isaiah, God took the initiative
with Peter. Peter felt a tremendous sense of unworthiness. Jesus didn’t say: “Hey
Peter, when you get your act together come back and we’ll talk about what I
want you to do.” Jesus just told him not to be afraid and that his vocation was
now to fish for people.
Like Isaiah and St. Peter, St. Paul also experienced
his sense of unworthiness before God for persecuting the followers of Jesus. Isaiah,
Peter, and Paul were all called by God to put out into the deep waters of life.
They proclaimed their sinfulness and unworthiness before God and so should we.
Whenever we feel that we are unworthy of the mission that the Lord has given to
us, it’s a good time to remember that no one is worthy.
A favorite quote of mine is from Venerable
Bruno Lanteri, an 18th-century Italian priest and founder of the
Oblates of the Virgin Mary. He said: “If I should fall even a thousand times a
day, a thousand times I will say, now I begin again.”
To experience the wonderful action of God’s
grace in our lives we need supernatural faith. But supernatural faith requires
total sacrifice and obedience to the Word of God, to “Glorify God with our
lives” as one of the dismissals at the end of Mass says. I’m sure that many of
us have asked God the question: Why am I here, what is my mission in life?
Jesus tells us, “Put out into deep water.” “Most of us spend our spiritual
lives,” Bishop Barron says, “in the shallows, which is to say preoccupied with
the petty goods of this world . . . but we are not meant for this. We are meant
for the depths, for the adventure of the open sea, which is to say for the high
demand of the spiritual life.”
What I have learned, and continue to learn
over the years, is that following God’s call is not a one-time event, it’s a
daily event. It is a lifelong process with a lot of failure and a few
successes. One of my fears is that when I am called home by God I’ll say: Wait,
wait, I’m not finished! But we are never
finished in this life. God is not looking for the perfect score. He takes us as
we are. Can we accept ourselves as we are?
Avery Cardinal Dulles, a one-time agnostic,
was a convert to Catholicism. He once told a friend that when he was thinking
about becoming a priest, he was afraid to answer the call until he heard an
inner voice saying, “Fear not.”
Many years later, when he was made a
Cardinal, there was a celebratory dinner for him at Fordham University in NY.
His sister spoke at the dinner telling about the upheaval in the family over
his decision to become a Catholic. His Presbyterian Father, John Foster Dulles,
a U.S. Secretary of State, told him he was throwing his life away. His sister
went on: “Of course, they were right. He did throw his life away.” Dead
silence. Then she winked at her brother and said: “For Christ.”
I know there must be thousands of stories
about people who have received life-changing calls with no logical explanation.
I’m sure there are many stories right here in the community. But the fact is
that Jesus continues to call people to radical vocations (and I would say
becoming a Trappist monk is one of them!). Just as he called Peter, James, and
John. God calls to each of us in our ordinary daily lives and asks us to follow
him, over, and over again.
God has chosen to work with us, as sinful,
broken, and inadequate as we are. So let us be alert to God’s call, He’s
saying: “Do not be afraid.”
“When they brought their boats to the
shore, they left everything and followed him.”
Reflection and photograph by Father Emmanuel
