Dear Brothers and Sisters,
They brought their boats to the shore and left everything and followed him. I am impressed by this last expression, this last sentence in today’s gospel. One does not leave something good for something worse, usually we leave something to get something better, no? For these apostles following Christ is better than everything they leave behind; it is better than everything they have. And the Lord does not tell them to leave everything and follow me, no! They did not need to be convinced to leave everything; it is not a requirement, a demand. They didn’t say or think, ‘Now I have to leave my family, now I have to leave fishing, now I have to leave my father, now I have to leave my children, now I have to leave my money, my little house, my goods to follow Jesus Christ.’ This is not true. It is just the opposite. I have discovered something much bigger and greater. It is like the words of that song that say: I have found the love of my life; I have embraced him and will never let him go. It is from The Song of Songs in the Old Testament. It is like the parable of the one who finds the hidden treasure in the field.
It says he sells everything he has in order to buy the field because he has found something greater and bigger than anything he has. To live for Christ is greater than anything else you have.
For the apostles to experience this freedom something is necessary that we see at the beginning of the gospel. They had been fishing all night and what did they catch? Absolutely nothing! And then Christ arrives in the morning after they had been up all night and caught nothing, not one fish. Pretty poor fishermen and that is us in everything we do. Today are you tired of life, tired of sinning, tired of work, tired of your marriage, of your children, of your boss, of your mother-in-law, tired of your sicknesses, tired of getting up every morning and complaining about everything? Then you are living what you heard in the beginning of today’s gospel.
You have been up all night and have not caught anything. You are tired and sad and something is missing. Christ comes walking along the shore and sees their disappointment and then he does something wonderful. And he does not say ask, Simon, for permission to get into your boat; Jesus gets up and goes into the boat and asks him to put out a short distance from the shore. They go out about twenty or thirty feet so the people on the beach could listen to Jesus’ preaching. So where is Peter? He must be sitting in the boat with the Lord listening attentively to the preaching since he was proclaiming the word of God. The gospel says Jesus was sitting down and teaching the crowd. Peter, I imagine, was listening attentively and when Jesus finishes his preaching, he tells Peter to lower the nets for a catch. Peter resists and says we have been in the boat all night and caught nothing but at your word, what word? The word that he heard from Jesus’ preaching when he was in the boat. He embraced that word; he heard the good news, and he lowered the nets.
Peter is listening when Christ was preaching perhaps more that those who were on the shore. I will tell you something more, Jesus was speaking not so much for those on the shore, but for the one who was near him, Peter. He says, “At your word I will lower the nets.” We have also heard this word to lower the nets. But who is this guy in the boat who is telling me to throw the nets, leave me in peace, I have been out the whole night and didn’t catch a worm, so you go home, go back to Nazareth. But Peter says, “On account of your word, I will lower them.” How marvelous, brothers and sisters. He experiences something beautiful, because when you listen, faith comes. How does Christ start to make a Christian man? First, there is a failure, a crisis, which is wonderful for you. Then, listen to the preaching, to the Word of God because faith comes from listening. However, if the preaching does not fall on the good ground of a prior failure. If you have not been trying all night because you think that you are good, a saint, you do everything well, a super-Christian, which is the attitude of many people and so they don’t listen to the preaching. They don’t get it because they are good. They do everything well. Then the word does not fall of good ground; it falls among thorns or weeds or on rocky ground. The word is carried away quickly by the devil and nothing helps you.
So don’t be afraid to experience this failure tonight, a dark night, they caught nothing at the beginning, a total failure. Then, the preaching falls on good soil and it is wonderful because then you can take a risk and throw the nets. Preaching must lead you to risk something in your life. I don’t know what but to risk something important to you. Then you can have an experience like Peter when he sees the huge catch of fish: depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. When you experience your weakness, your littleness in the face of God’s greatness then you understand your smallness in front of such a great love. It is wonderful because when the light comes, as it arrived for Peter, and it will come for you in the middle of that dark night. And what does it enlighten? It enlightens me about who I am, and then I can say, ‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinner.’
That is why on this path it is very important that you discover who you are and when you see it, it’s wonderful. Christianity leads you to discover that you are a sinner. If you think that you are getting better, you are going backwards. To discover how little you are, that you cannot love, not able to be faithful to God or your spouse, that you are a poor man, then you can sincerely say, leave me, Lord, for I am a sinner, and I do not deserve all the love you have shown me.
Then remember Jesus says to them, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” This is absolutely amazing, revolutionary, because when one has encountered this love, he can now fish others. How can he catch men, by loving them. How can you fish your wife, by loving her, not judging her because she doesn’t go to church. How can you fish your children, by loving them, how to catch your boss, by loving him. You cannot love if Christ has not fished you first.
Christ already fished Peter; he took the bait; the hook of love and he is already hooked. He caught him and now he can catch others. It is beautiful. The sea is always a sign of death in the Bible and the boat is the Church; Peter is a symbol of the Father, who is in the Church and is there with Jesus Christ and overcomes the sea which is death. He fishes men from the sea, from death. When has Christ taken you out of the sea? It is an important question to answer and to know with certainty. Where are you in this path of faith? Have you experienced failure, or not yet, have you listened to the preaching or not really? Have you seen the love that God has for you or still waiting, have you seen your sins, or just the sins of the others, have you caught someone, or not yet?
Fishing is effortless. What efforts did Christ make to love you, nothing! Christ was a man, handsome, strong, attracted attention, must have had a strong voice because with a single word he changed people’s lives. They left everything and followed him. They left their money, their nets, their father and they followed him. I hope you have one word in your heart today that saves you. A word that saves your marriage, that saves you from being sad, that saves you from an abortion, that saves you from begging for affection, that saves you from engaging in disordered sexuality. That word is the Church, and it is given to you by Christ in the preaching that Christ does in the Eucharist.