A Word for the 18th Sunday After Pentecost (8)

Today’s Gospel of Luke (Lk 5:1-11) presents to us a moving and majestic spectacle: the Creator of the whole world, the eternal, almighty God, the all-sovereign Giver of every breath, having become like us men in everything except sin—sitting in a fishing boat near the shore, in His humble, all-attractive simplicity, teaches the people, standing in a countless crowd on the shore of the Sea of Gennesaret. Glory to the heavenly Teacher, who came Himself in person to enlighten people gone astray and perishing in the darkness of sin; but honor, too, to the people who, it seems, recognized the worth of such a Teacher and such teaching, and hastened after Him in crowds numbering in the thousands, to hear the word of God; God grant that in our own day, too, the hunger for the word of God may not cease, but rather increase; for the word of God is imperishable food, by which human hearts are fed and strengthened, and a spiritual drink, quenching the thirst of the immortal soul, which, like a thirsting deer, strives toward the fountain of living water. When the heavenly Teacher had finished teaching, He said to Simon Peter, the owner of the boat: «launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. But Simon answered and said to Him: Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net. And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying: depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord! For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus told Simon: do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men. And when they had brought both boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him» (Lk 5:1-11). Here the Sunday Gospel ends.

In this Gospel everything is instructive and edifying for us: the Lord’s command to Peter to launch out into the deep of the lake and let down the nets for a catch; Simon Peter’s answer to the Lord; the wondrous catch, which almost sank the boat; the terror of Peter and his companions at so unprecedented a catch; and, on account of their sense of the most holy Godhead of Jesus, their sense of their own sins, and Peter’s humble entreaty to the Lord to depart from him, and the Lord’s answer to him: do not be afraid, from now on you will catch men—and, finally, the disciples’ self-denial, the abandonment of so rich a catch, so pleasant and always so desirable to fishermen, and their unreturning, unregretful following after the Savior. Let us reflect, then, with God’s help, on why and how all this is instructive and edifying, so that we too may in fact gain benefit and edification from today’s Gospel reading. Jesus Christ commands Peter to launch out into the deep and let down the nets, and Peter answers: Master! We have toiled all night and caught nothing; but at Your word I will let down the net. In the Savior’s command we see the authority of the Creator of all creation. The Lord knew that Peter and Andrew and their companions had fished all night and caught nothing, but, as God, He commands them to let down the net once more—only to let it down, leaving it to His own divine authority to give the signal to the creatures living in the water to fill the nets. And Peter obeys the Master’s command, even though only moments before he had faced the trial of laboring all night in vain; and the fish, at a single signal from the Lord, immediately fill the nets, showing themselves obedient servants of Him whom, with fear, the countless hosts of Angels serve in heaven; and a plain miracle came to pass, and the divine authority of Jesus Christ over creatures was openly revealed to Peter; and His boundless holiness, and His omniscience—and all his own soul’s weaknesses presented themselves vividly to Peter, and, in fear, he falls down at the knees of Him before whom bows «every knee, of those in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth» (Phil 2:10), and says to Him: depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord! Who would not be moved at heart by this sight of a faithful disciple, falling in fear at the knees of the Lord of glory, and, in an instant, coming to know the whole abyss of distance between the most radiant, all-righteous Godhead and a worthless creature, crawling in earthly dust, sinful and guilty before God. Honor to Peter’s faith, his obedience, his humility, his repentance! Let us too learn these virtues from him. But inexpressibly moving, touching, and beautiful here, as everywhere, is the Lord’s own bearing—His majesty joined with humility, a boundless condescension that astonishes the Angels. Nor can I myself refrain, here, from crying out: O Lord! How, everywhere, beneath the humble veil of Your humanity, Your most radiant Godhead shines forth and enraptures me! Every word of Yours is divine, authoritative, life-giving, wondrous, as is every deed of Yours.

Here we are, in this temple, standing now, all of us, before the face of that same Lord Jesus Christ, invisibly present here, and visibly present too in His life-giving Mysteries. Do we feel, do we sense with our hearts, that we stand before His face; are we conscious, do we feel our own weaknesses, our own sins, as we stand before the face of God, as Peter felt them; are we conscious of our own unworthiness; do we have a saving thirst for amendment, a thirst for sanctification by the grace of Christ, a thirst for the righteousness of God, for Christian perfection, for the glory of the children of God? Let us learn, then, not to enter the Lord’s temple in vain, but to stand in it with fear and with a sense of our own unworthiness, and to ask humbly for mercy. But what did Jesus Christ answer Simon Peter, when, in fear, he asked Him, his Lord, to depart from him? Do not be afraid, the Lord told him; from now on you will catch men. This answer of the Lord’s is most instructive and edifying for all of us. Here the Lord applies the catching of fish to the catching of men, comparing the one to the other. But however understandable the catching of fish is, at first glance, to everyone, just as incomprehensible, on the other hand, is the catching of men by the Apostles. Here, in these words of the Lord, there is evidently a parable. He often spoke in parables, and, as it were, in riddles. This parable means the following: just as fishermen catch fish in the water with a net, or a hook baited with food, or a spear, so the enemy and destroyer of the human race, the devil, through various baits, or worldly passions, through various snares set everywhere for us, and, as it were, his own hooks and sharp weapons, catches us in sin and ruin, and wishes to make all of us his own prey and food, to destroy us and torment us for endless ages in his own insatiable belly—and, unfortunately, sometimes succeeds terribly in his own art of catching and destroying people through various worldly passions. But the Lord Jesus Christ came to deliver people from the evil cunning and the greed of this hunter. He sent His own fishers—the Apostles—into the whole world, having first taught them themselves the art of being uncatchable and invulnerable to this fearsome hunter, and also the art of catching up people already caught by the devil in his universal net; and just as the devil catches people unto ruin, so the disciples of Christ were to snatch people out of his ruinous nets into eternal life, through faith, repentance, amendment, and good deeds. And we know that the Apostles, and after them their successors, the shepherds and teachers, caught, with the net of the Gospel—that is, with the saving teaching of the Gospel—many people who had gone astray, unto salvation, and, having destroyed the whole strength of the demonic host, snatched, as it were, out of the very teeth of the devil, human souls as their own prize; with the net of faith they caught all nations into the knowledge of Christ, our God. Now it is clear what the words of Jesus Christ to Peter mean: do not be afraid; from now on you will catch men—that is, with your own rational, God-fashioned net you will catch people into My faith, will teach them repentance, My righteousness, and every virtue, and will lead them to eternal life. Do not be afraid—that is, do not tremble, and do not think that I, the all-righteous One, have come to punish sinners; I have come to save and to have mercy; for I alone know the full weakness of human nature, I know that the fearsome, mortal, foul-smelling wound of sin has covered the whole human race—that the whole descent of Adam is drawn into ruin by the evil cunning of the serpent. I have come to help the weak, I, the Strong One, to help the powerless; I, the all-righteous One, to help sinners; I have come to take upon Myself the sins of the world, to receive its infirmities, to bear its sicknesses; I have come to heal this malignant wound, and to restore to health, to renew, to make fragrant, to deify mankind, believing in Me; I have come, so that against the hunter of men unto ruin—that is, the devil—I might set the Hunter unto eternal life—Myself, and the almighty Comforting Spirit, of one nature with the Father and with Me; so that against the demonic hosts I might set the company of the Apostles, and their successors, and all who are faithful to Me. Do not be afraid, then; from now on you will catch men. I have come to instill in people not fear, but love.

O Lord! Catch all of us too in Your saving, divine net; let none of us become the prey and the food of the stranger. O Savior, spare us Yourself! Amen.