Saint Luke 5,1-11: Leaving everything, they followed him.
Today Luke tells us about the vocational call of Peter and the other first disciples: «from now on you will be a fisher of men.» Until now he appeared working alone. Now look for collaborators. Yesterday the Gospel spoke of Peter: Jesus cured his mother-in-law of fever. Today he tells us how, in order to get away a little from the people who were crowding around him, he asks Pedro to lend him his boat. What satisfaction would Peter feel: that preacher who is becoming famous, by his word and by his miracles, has asked him for his boat.
Then, although reluctantly, because he has the experience of the night’s failure, he casts his nets «by the word of Jesus.» And the unexpected happens: the miraculous catch, which provokes in Peter a reaction of horror and admiration: «Get away from me, Lord, I am a sinner.» They must not have understood much about being a «fisher of men.» But that man has convinced them: «leaving everything, they followed him.»
Being «fishers of men» does not mean anything pejorative. Fishing people, in this sense, is not extreme proselytizing, nor is it making them die for our benefit – that’s what fishing for fish is all about – but rather the opposite: evangelizing, convincing, offering on behalf of God to as many more people better the good news of love and salvation. At the origin of our Christian and apostolic vocation there may not be a «miraculous catch» or some extraordinary event. But yes, somehow, there has been and still is a feeling of admiration and wonder for Christ, and the conviction that it is worth leaving everything and following him, to collaborate with him in the salvation of the world.
Probably what we have already experienced are sterile nights in which «we have not caught anything» and days in which we have felt the presence of Jesus that has made our work effective. Without it, sterility. With him, surprising fertility. And so we mature, like those first disciples, on our journey of faith, through good days and bad. So that, on the one hand, we do not fall into the temptation of fear or laziness. And, on the other hand, let us not trust excessively in our methods, but in the power of the word of Christ. If we have not achieved more, in our apostolate, «offshore», could it not have been because we have trusted more in ourselves than in him? Why have we «cast the nets» in our own name and not in his?
Peace and good
Fr. Antonio Majeesh George Kallely, OFM
