There is a particular tiredness that belongs to the end of a night shift. The work is finished, nothing came of it, and all that remains is to clean the tools and go home. That is the hour at which today's Gospel begins.
Now it happened that, when the crowds pressed toward him, so that they might hear the word of God, he was standing beside the lake of Genesaret. And he saw two boats standing beside the lake. But the fishermen had climbed down, and they were washing their nets. And so, climbing into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, he asked him to draw back a little from the land. And sitting down, he taught the crowds from the boat. Then, when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, "Lead us into deep water, and release your nets for a catch." And in response, Simon said to him: "Teacher, working throughout the night, we caught nothing. But on your word, I will release the net." And when they had done this, they enclosed such a copious multitude of fish that their net was rupturing. And they signalled to their associates, who were in the other boat, so that they would come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they were nearly submerged. But when Simon Peter had seen this, he fell down at the knees of Jesus, saying, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken. Now the same was true of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were associates of Simon. And Jesus said to Simon: "Do not be afraid. From this point on, you will be catching men." And having led their boats to the land, leaving behind all things, they followed him. (Lk 5:1-11)
The scene opens with a crowd pushing forward and a man looking for somewhere to stand. What Jesus finds is not a platform but a working boat, dirty from the night, belonging to someone he has not yet called. He asks to borrow it. Before Simon is an apostle he is a lender of small property, and the whole of his future begins with that unremarkable yes.
Notice how little is demanded at this stage. Push out a few metres. Sit still while a stranger talks. Most vocations do not look like vocations when they begin; they look like a small inconvenience accepted without much thought.
Then the request changes. "Lead us into deep water, and release your nets for a catch." This is said to a professional fisherman, by a carpenter's son, at the wrong time of day, in the wrong part of the lake. Simon knows the water. He has just spent the whole night proving that there is nothing in it.
His answer is one of the most honest sentences in the Gospels. He does not pretend to agree. "Teacher, working throughout the night, we caught nothing." The objection stands, complete and unretracted. And then, joined to it by nothing but a small word, comes the turn: "But on your word, I will release the net." That is what faith looks like on an ordinary morning. Not the disappearance of our experience, but the decision to let a word we did not invent weigh more than a tally we did.
What follows overflows immediately. The nets begin to tear, the second boat has to be called, and both boats sit so low that they are nearly submerged. God's answers are rarely tidy. They tend to arrive in quantities that cannot be managed alone, which is why the first thing Simon does with the gift is signal to his companions. Abundance in the Gospel is never private; it is the beginning of a team.
And then the reaction that surprises us. Faced with more than he asked for, Simon does not celebrate. He falls at Jesus' knees: "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." Nearness to real goodness does that. It does not crush us with our faults; it simply makes them visible, the way clean light shows the dust on a table. Simon is not being morbid. He is being accurate, and for the first time he calls Jesus Lord.
Jesus does not argue with the self-knowledge, and he does not accept the request. "Do not be afraid." He never says that Simon is mistaken about himself. He says that being a sinful man is not a disqualification for being sent. The one who will catch men is chosen precisely as he is, on the morning he had nothing to show.
Saint Paul, writing to the Corinthians, puts the same reversal in another key. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, and then the door opens wide: all things are yours, the world, life, death, things present and things to come, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. Simon had been counting the fish he did not catch. Paul tells us the accounting runs the other way. We do not first own and then give; we belong, and in belonging everything is already given back.
Saint Gregory, whom the Church remembers today, learned this the hard way. Prefect of the city of Rome, he gave away his position and his inheritance for a monastery, and there he was happy. He was taken out of that silence and set on the chair of Peter, and he wrote afterwards, without any pious varnish, that he wept for the quiet shore he had lost. He governed a city in famine, negotiated with invading armies, and sent Augustine across the sea to a distant island called England. He signed himself servant of the servants of God, a title the popes still use. He is the pattern of the man pushed into deep water against his own preference, who lowers the net.
Something of Bethlehem is already in this boat. The Child had no room and no equipment of his own; he came into a borrowed shelter as the Lord here steps into a borrowed boat. He asks us for very little, and he asks for it at the moment we feel least productive. Nothing was caught that night, and so there was room.
So there is one concrete thing to carry today. Somewhere in our life is a net we have stopped lowering because the last attempt came to nothing: a conversation, a prayer, a person, a task in the community, a hope we quietly retired. We do not have to feel confident about it. It is enough to say what Simon said, keeping our honest figures and adding the small word: but on your word.
They came back to shore with the boats full, and left them there. Everything they had wanted was finally in the hull, and it had already become too small a thing to stay for.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Father, you speak at the hour when we have nothing to show, and you ask for the little we still have. Give us the honesty of Simon, who did not hide his empty night, and his readiness to let down the nets on your word alone. Where we are afraid of the deep water, do not let our fear decide; where you send us out of the silence we love, give us the heart of Saint Gregory, who served without ceasing to pray. Make us poor enough to be filled, and free enough to leave the full boats on the shore. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Meditation
- Which net have we stopped lowering, because the last time we caught nothing?
- What small thing is Jesus asking to borrow from us today?
- Where are we waiting to be worthy before we let ourselves be sent?
