Instruction for the Second Sunday After Pentecost (7)

He says to them: come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men (Mt 4:19).

These words were spoken, my brethren, by Jesus Christ to two fishermen and blood brothers: Peter, afterward the foremost of the apostles, and Andrew, afterward called the First-Called. Come after Me, and I will make you… Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men; after Me, that is, in My footsteps—the footsteps of freedom from possessions, of whole-hearted love for God and for the human race, for the true, heavenly, eternal fatherland; in the footsteps of meekness, humility, patience, freedom from malice, complete self-denial: and I will make you fishers of men, that is, I will bring it about that, instead of fish, you will draw men up out of the abyss of sin into holiness, out of this sea of life, tossed by many waves, into the Kingdom of Heaven. But why did the Lord tell Peter and Andrew that He would make them fishers of men? He spoke so in keeping with their own trade, their own occupation, so that they might more readily understand their future calling from His brief words, and so as to make it, so to speak, easier for them to pass from one occupation to another, from like to like, from the catching of fish to the catching of men. Let us speak now, brethren, of what this spiritual fishing for men is—what it may be, which kind is to be desired, and which kind is to be fled.

You know, of course, all of you, that in the beginning the serpent, wisest of all the beasts of the earth, or, more plainly, the devil in the form of a serpent, caught in his hellish nets the first humans, Eve, and then Adam, and through them drew the whole human race into sin, the curse, and death, and even to this day we languish in these sinful nets, even to this day we die by sin. After a long time there came upon the earth the Deliverer promised even to the first humans, Jesus Christ, the Son of God—precisely in order to deliver men from the nets of the ancient enemy, from sins and from death, temporal and eternal, into which the terrible hunter of the human race, the fallen angel of light, the Day Star, who became Satan, the apostate from God, the king of death, the ruler of darkness, of the fire of Gehenna, had drawn it. But in order to draw men out of the nets of the ancient man-slayer, who had darkened their souls and defiled them with his malicious breath, it was necessary to enlighten them with the light of heavenly truth, to wash away their sinful filth by repentance, baptism, and the other Mysteries, and unceasingly, in every age, to guide them to the Kingdom on high. Therefore it was necessary for the Savior, the God-Man, to choose helpers and continuers of His great work of the salvation of mankind, and He chose such from among the common people, for their simplicity and humility, called them apostles, and sent them to enlighten men, to bring them to repentance, to baptize them, to perform the other Mysteries, and to guide them to eternal life. In doing this, they were fishers of men, that is, they drew out into the light of God, out of eternal ruin into eternal life, people who had been caught by the devil in the darkness of sin. And now, when we preach to you the Word of God, celebrate the services of worship and the Mysteries, what else do we do but the very same thing that they did? We cast out the spiritual net, at the word of the Lord, and wait, hoping that, by the grace of God, someone or other will fall into this spiritual, saving net; that perhaps this one or that one among you will leave the path of sin and ruin, and return to the path of truth and virtue, and receive eternal life. But this is a saving net, a divine net; this net is to be desired. In it one ought to abide. But there is another net—a ruinous, satanic net, of which we spoke at the beginning; this net one must flee with all one’s strength. Yes, my brethren, the evil hunter—I mean the devil—daily catches each one of us in his hellish nets! And how many of these nets there are, and how many careless souls fall into these nets! Here are these nets, the more ordinary ones, in which he catches us: the net of anger and enmity; the net of covetousness; the net of attachment to pleasures and amusements; the net of pride, of doubt in the truths of the faith, the net of unbelief; the net of envy toward one’s neighbor and ill-will; the net of miserliness, or the passion for hoarding money; the net of gluttony, of drunkenness; the net of the passion of fornication; the net of attachment to finery, when a man thinks only of adorning his body, and never thinks at all of adorning his soul with virtues; the net of despondency, of murmuring; the net of false shame, of fear, of laughter; the net of the condemnation of one’s neighbor; the net of idle talk and slander. And are there few of these nets! Only look closely, with spiritual eyes, at this unseen, spiritual hunting of the enemy, and you yourselves will see how many nets the enemy of the human race casts for the ruin of our soul. Brothers and sisters! Guard yourselves against the enemy’s nets. Be unceasingly watchful over yourselves: earnestly save your souls, with the help of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; visit the house of God more often—this quiet haven, where the grace of God catches us in the saving net of the Word of God, of the very services of worship, and of the Mysteries celebrated there, unto eternal life. Amen.