Today's Gospel

Cast Out Into the Deep

Welcome back. Today we explore the gospel of Jesus calling His first disciples in the Gospel of Luke 5:1-11. "While the people pressed upon him to hear the Word of God, he was standing by the lake. And he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had ceased, he said to Simon, 'Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.' And Simon answered, 'Master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word, I will let down the nets.' And when they had done this, they enclosed a great catch of fish and their nets were breaking. They beckoned to their friends in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink. And 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 was astonished and all that were with him at the catch of fish which they had taken. And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, 'Do not be afraid. Henceforth, you will be a fisher of men.' And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything behind to follow Jesus."

It's a beautiful reading. What jumps out at me is Jesus says to Peter, "Put down your nets into the deep." And the deep's important here because it wasn't just nudge your boat off the shore and just let down your nets and just take the boats out, let the nets down into the deep. We know now, archeologically, that what Jesus was asking for was a three or a four-hour exercise. You get the boats out there, the way the nets were, to let the nets down, to bring the nets back up. It wasn't a five-minute thing. It was a three or four-hour thing.

And keep in mind that Peter said, "Lord, we've been toiling all night, and we've caught nothing." And we see Jesus and Peter interacting in other parts of the gospel. We get a sense of Peter's personality. And you can imagine sort of like what was Peter thinking, right? Maybe he's thinking, "Jesus, man, you don't know anything about fishing. We know about the fishing. We've been out there fishing all night and we didn't catch anything." Maybe Peter's thinking that and questioning Jesus in his mind, in his heart. But ultimately, he says, "Jesus, if you say put down the nests, we'll put down the nets." I think ourselves, we can fall into the same trap, where God asks us to do something, and then we start questioning it from a very human perspective.

It's easy to fall into that trap. It's easy to say, "Okay, but maybe this won't work or maybe that won't work." And very often, we're thinking many steps down the road. And Jesus is just saying, "Take this one step. Trust me. Trust in me. Believe me. Believe in me. Take this one step." And as we do trust Him, and as we do walk with Him, what happens? Great catch. Peter got a great catch. What is the great catch in your life? What great catch are you hoping for in your life? And are you walking with God so that He can give you that great catch in your marriage, in your family, in your career, in your health, in your finances, in your ministry, at your church, in your school, in our nation? We need a great catch. We have to follow the Lord's directives. Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.