Thursday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 2, 2021

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.

This very dramatic account of the call by Jesus of his first Apostles is found only in St. Luke’s Gospel.  At first glance, this account seems not to fit in with what Sts. Matthew, Mark, and John tell us about their call.  Matthew and Mark tell us very simply that the Lord Jesus was walking one early morning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and called these men after a hard night’s work.  John tells us that Andrew brought his brother Peter to Jesus after spending a good part of the day with him.  These accounts are easily reconciled, however.  The first meeting of Andrew and Peter with Jesus came in the way that John describes it.  At the time, Jesus was living near the place, in Judea, where John was baptizing.  Andrew was a disciple of John, and perhaps Peter was as well.  They would have listened to John preach for some days and then gone to their home in Capernaum to fish, and after some time they would return to John.  According to John the Apostle, Jesus did not call Peter and Andrew to follow him at the time they first met.  The other Evangelists tell us of the actual call.  Matthew and Mark give us the bare outline, which Luke fills in with the details he provides.  

Luke gives us a very dramatic report of what happened the very early morning, with dawn breaking, when the Lord called Peter and the others.  First, there is the preaching in the boat to the crowd on the shore.  Then the pushing out into deeper water where the exhausted fishermen throw their nets yet another time, into the hitherto barren waters.  Almost immediately, the nets fill up with fish.  The sudden catch takes the fishermen completely by surprise and they scramble to pull up the nets before either they break or the boat topples over by the weight of the catch in the net.  The ship maintained by the Zebedee family pushes out to help them.  After a great struggle, the boats, filled with fish are able to return to shore.  Peter is stunned.  He looks at all the fish — the biggest catch he has ever hauled in — and he looks out at the water, now beginning to be lit by the sun’s warming rays, and he looks at Jesus, who stands close to him in the boat.  All around, the fishermen are cheering and shouting for joy and slapping each other on the back.  Peter, his breath still coming in heaves from the work and the excitement, looks at Jesus in silence.  Jesus is looking not just at him, but into him.  Into his heart.  Peter can feel it.  He struggles for words and stammers out, as he falls upon his knees, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  Jesus heard him, and Peter felt Jesus hear him, and then Jesus said to him, his voice clear over the noise of the men and the sea, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  Peter, then known as Simon, Andrew, James, and John did not know what the Lord meant by “catching men”, but they knew that this Rabbi from Nazareth was calling them to follow him, and “when they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.”  We note that Jesus did not reject Peter’s confession.  Jesus knew well the condition of Peter’s soul.  Jesus chose Peter anyway, showing that he does call sinners to follow him and even to lead his Church.  He sustains his call to Peter even after Peter denied him after his arrest.  He knows that we are all sinners and he calls us anyway, even to the greatest heights of sanctity.  Peter and the others did not yet realize it, but they themselves had been caught by God.