Thursday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 3, 2020

The Feast of St. Gregory the Great

Luke 5:1-11

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.

St. Luke calls the large freshwater lake around which Jesus did most of his preaching and healing “the Lake of Gennesaret”, the Greek version of the original name found in the Old Testament (cf. Joshua 13, 27).  The Jews living in the region of Galilee after the return of the exiles from Babylon called it “the Sea of Galilee”.  When Herod Antipas built the city of Tiberias on the lake’s western coast in 20 A.D., it became known as “the Sea of Tiberias”, although local usage retained the older name.  It runs in length to thirteen miles, eight miles in width, and 157 feet at its deepest point.  It is largely fed by the Jordan River.  In The Wars of the Jews, III, 3, 7, the historian Josephus describes the water as very good for drinking, and that the lake abounded in fish of a wide variety. 

In today’s Gospel reading we find the Lord Jesus preaching on the lake’s shore in the early morning.  Since little room for a crowd existed in the small town of Capernaum’s marketplace, it should not be surprising for him to have gone there to announce the kingdom of heaven.  The gathering crowd pressed up against him, forcing the Lord back almost into the water.  Seeing two boats pulled up on the sand nearby, he walks towards the boat of one of the tired, wet fishermen who are washing their big nets, and gets in it.  It sounds to us as though he were treating this boat as his own.  He then asks Simon, the owner, to put out a little from the shore, and when the weary Simon obliges, he preaches from the boat.  He probably preached for another hour or two, until people began to grow hungry.  We ought to consider how much Jesus was asking of Simon here.  The fisherman had already spent the night in the lake, casting the nets and hauling them in empty, time and again.  Soaked, cold, and exhausted, Simon delayed his own going home in order to row Jesus out for him to preach, leaving Andrew his brother to wash their net.  He could easily have excused himself from doing all of this, and no one would have blamed him, but he did not.  Jesus’s presence and his words captivated him.  And yet, Simon and his men pushed the boat back into the water.

“After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in reply, ‘Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.’ ”  The carpenter from Nazareth has commandeered Simon’s boat and now he gives orders.  The Lord instructs him to “put out into the deep water” — which meant a few miles out to sea.  Simon could not do this on his own.  It meant getting his brother and his small crew to come back to the boat, dragging the heavy net with them, and then heading out at a time when the fishing was over until the next night and all the other fishing boats had returned.  It also meant that if they cast their net, they would have to wash it all over again.  What could they have expected to happen when they cast their net this time?  After a long night of hard frustration, they could have had no serious expectations of anything.  At most, they were going through the motions at the behest of a man they hardly knew.

“When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing.”  At mid to late morning in the deep water, they should have pulled up their net empty.  But so full of fish was it that their net was tearing.  Simon and Andrew waved their arms and cried out to the distant shore for their partners James and John to come help them.  Their partners must have remained behind on the shore to mark the sequel.  They would have scrambled to put out into the water in order to lend their aid.  Meanwhile, Simon and Andrew and their men were struggling with the net, not daring to pull it out of the water but not loosing it and losing their windfall.  Jesus watches them closely.  Does Simon cast a glance at him or even remember him in the action of the moment?  He has his hands full.

“They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking.”  In 1986, the fairly well preserved remains of a fishing boat were discovered in the mud on the shore of the lake and were dated to the first century A.D.  Nothing like it had ever been found before.  It measured 27 feet long, by 7 feet wide, by 4 feet tall.  These dimensions help us to imagine the enormous haul of fish the fishermen got that morning, and something of the work and time that must have been involved.  Now, to see the significance of the natural impossibility of this catch, we ought to compare this with the sacrifice offered by Elijah the prophet after the prophets of Baal failed in their sacrifice to their god: “And he laid the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it upon the wood.  And he said: ‘Fill four buckets with water, and pour it upon the burnt offering, and upon the wood.’ And again he said: ‘Do the same the second time.’ And when they had done it the second time, he said: ‘Do the same also the third time.’ And they did so the third time. And the water run round about the altar, and the trench was filled with water . . . Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (1 Kings 18:33–38).  Clearly, the hand of God had caused this.

“When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, ‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.’ ”  As the fish spill into the boats to the shouts of his men, Simon turns and faces Jesus, who is looking intently upon him.  He knows that it is Jesus who has done this.  He may be a sinful man, but he is an honest and clear-sighted one.  His admission is heartfelt, and rather than attempt to curry favor with this man, he acknowledges his unworthiness: “Depart from, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”    The fact that Jesus could do this, and that he did it for him, Simon, the son of John, dumbfounds him.  “Astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him.”  The word translated here as “astonishment” might be better rendered as “shocked amazement”, particularly due to the utterly unanticipated nature of the catch.  It ought to be our feeling at the time of the consecration at Mass, when we also know that we are face to face with God.

“Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  The Lord meant this also for Andrew, James, John, and the others whom he would choose later as his Apostles.  They would be catching men in the net of the truth, the net of the Faith, with all its teachings closely connected together.  The net of the Church, the Body of Christ, with all the members bound together and together to Christ the Head of that Body.  They would catch a superabundant amount of men, too.  In this way Jesus fulfills what the Father had told Abraham long before: “I will bless you, and I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore; your seed shall possess the gates of their enemies” (Genesis 22, 17).  This reference to the gates of the enemies should remind us of Matthew 16, 18, in which the Lord will say to this same man: “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  That is, the Church, his “seed”.  

“When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.”  The call of Simon Peter and the first Apostles is told differently by Sts. Matthew and Mark.  St. Augustine, in his marvelous work, On the Harmony of the Gospels, says that Matthew and Mark give us a quick summary of the calling.  For them, what is essential is the effect the Lord’s preaching had on others, such that they would leave everything at once to follow him.  We also see this in the call of St. Matthew.  Luke, however, provides personal details and in so doing shows that the Lord has come for all people (the overflowing catch), and even makes ordinary men his helpers, repentant sinners though they may be.  The simple nobility of Simon Peter’s obedience to the Lord’s commands, the clarity of his confession, and the Lord’s calm promise would have impressed his Greek audience as well.

St. Gregory the Great ruled the Church and even directed civil affairs during a lawless time in the Italian peninsula following the fall of the Western Empire.  His sermons and books are full of gold for priests and laity alike.  We pray through his intercession for the conversion of all our bishops that they may lead lives worthy of their calling and so lead us to eternal pastures.