The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 6, 2022

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.

At first reading, St. Luke’s account of the calling of the first Apostles seems incompatible with what St. Matthew and St. Mark tell us.  However, when we take a little time to compare the accounts we can see, as St. Augustine assures us, that the first two of the Evangelists provide a streamlined version of the story.  They give us more of a “what happened” while Luke gives us a “how it happened”.  To put the narratives together we see that the Lord Jesus was not simply walking by himself on the shore of the  Lake of Gennesaret (one of the names for the Sea of Galilee) when he happened to see Peter’s boat, and then the boat of the Zebedee family.  He was, in fact, preaching.  He prevailed upon Peter and Andrew, who already knew him from John the Baptist, to take him in their boat and to hold it just off shore so that he would have room to speak to the crowd.  After dismissing the crowd, he directed Peter and Andrew to move their boat further out.  Perhaps moved by the Lord’s teaching, they did so, and were rewarded with a miraculous catch of fish, despite the unfavorable hour.  So impossible did this seem that both men knew that divine power had come into their midst.  Peter fell to his knees before Jesus and begged him, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  The response of Jesus is no less surprising — or, unsettling — than the catch of fish: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  Jesus does not choose a polished jewel to be the rock on which he would build his Church, but a craggy lump of stone sticking out of the earth.

The writers of the Gospels present to us stories of Jesus as he interacts with mortal men and women, and at the same time presents to us stories of Jesus interacting with us.  We can see ourselves in Peter, and that is part of Luke’s intention.  In our own lives we have seen and experienced the intervention of God on our behalf as great as the catch of fish was for Peter.  This coming face to face with the divine ought to cause us to kneel in wonder at God and grief for our sins.  And God’s message is the same to us as to Peter: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  That is, I have work for you to do.  Do not be afraid that your sinfulness makes you unworthy or incapable.  It is I who know you who give you this work.

Peter, Andrew, James, and John for their part, did not hesitate: “When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.”  Perhaps they recalled the prophecy, “Behold I will send many fishers, says the Lord, and they shall catch them” (Jeremiah 26, 16).  The Lord, speaking through the Prophet, is foretelling how he will bring back the exiled Jewish people from Babylon, where they had been sent on account of their sins.  The fulfillment of this prophecy would come with the servants of God returning the people to true religion.  We are each called to do our part in this work, doing what we can to bring the people around us to their senses so that they may know God.  The work of fishing is hard, often unpleasant, and requires perseverance.  But working at the direction of the Lord Jesus and with his help, our nets will also fill to bursting.