The Gospel this Sunday presents us with Jesus “teaching the people who are pressing round him listening to the Word of God” He teaches them from the shore but there are so many that he has to get into a boat and, from there, continue his teaching. When he finished he said to Peter to go out into the deep to fish, who after explaining the difficulties they had had during the night, said, “if you say so, I will pay out the nets”.
And it produces a miraculous catch of fish. Given the abundant catch, Peter bows down before Jesus, he acknowledges him as Lord and sees his own unworthiness. Again, the saving words of Jesus. “Do not be afraid; from now on it will be men you will catch”. Peter and the others, leaving everything, followed him.
In the first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, he recognises himself a sinner before the manifestation of the Lord: “What a wretched state I am in! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and my eyes have looked at the King, the Lord of Hosts”. But the Lord forgives him and sends Isaiah as a prophet. In the Letter to the Corinthians, in the second reading, Paul recognises that “I hardly deserve the name apostle since I persecuted the Church; but by God’s grace that is what I am”. The acknowledgement of his own smallness on the part of Isaiah, of Paul, of Peter, shows that it is the grace of God that acts and makes the Word effective.
In his encounter with the Lord, Isaiah is converted into one sent as a prophet; Paul, into an apostle to the gentiles, and Peter and the other apostles, into fishers of men.
In my day to day relationship with Jesus, in the coming together with brothers and sisters, in the Sunday Eucharist, Am I aware of the greatness of Jesus compared to my weakness? Am I disposed to leave everything to follow him, to be sent, to collaborate with him?
Juan Ramón Gómez Pascual, cmf
