FISHERS OF MEN
Thursday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
Why would Peter, James, and John leave everything to follow Jesus? Because they believed in him. When Jesus had finished his preaching from Peter’s boat, he told them to pull out a little way from shore and lower the nets for a catch. “But,” said Peter, “we have been hard at it all night and have caught nothing…”
It was the custom to fish at night, only the uninitiated and tourists fished during the day. Maybe daytime is when fish do their sleeping, I don’t know. But Peter went along with Jesus anyhow. “If you say so, I’ll lower the nets.” And we know what happened. “They caught such a great number of fish that their nets were to a breaking point.”
After that astonishing happening we are told that Peter, James, and John left everything, boat and all, to follow Jesus for the rest of their lives. Though they were to experience some very upsetting and unexpected moments, they were faithful in their following of him.
You and I are followers of Jesus too. Maybe we haven’t witnessed any great miracles, maybe we have, but for whatever the reason we try to live our lives in accordance with the teachings of Christ. But we do have those moments, don’t we, when we are tempted to go off and do our own things? Like Adam and Eve did, and like the world tells us to do.
The greatest miracle is not catching fish, curing the sick, or even walking on water. It is keeping faith in Christ in a society such as ours. But we can do it. Nothing we possess is more important than our faithfulness to Jesus Christ. “Peter, James, and John left everything and became his followers.”
