Is 6:1-2a, 3-8; Ps 138; 1Cor 15:1-11; Lk 5:1-11

COMMENTARY

«At Thy Word»

This Sunday’s Gospel narrates the call of Simon Peter and of Jesus’ first disciples according to St Luke’s version. This is a well-known passage to many of us, and, as the Word of the living God, this text has certainly also inspired many men and women over the centuries to leave everything and follow Jesus. (Saint John Paul II particularly loved the Polish song “Barka” “The boat,” inspired by this event and with a very beautiful melody). However, a more careful reading of some details of this Lukan account will help us to discover new thoughts the Holy Spirit wants to whisper to each of us today about our own calling our call to missionary discipleship.

1. The context of the Word heard and fulfilled. It is the first detail of the story to which not everyone pays full attention, perhaps because of other more beautiful and eye-catching details. Nonetheless, this is quite an important aspect, emerging from the very beginning: “the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God.” It describes the setting and offers the key to understanding what follows in the story. The phrase is even more significant, if we keep in mind that, as noted by the exegetes, it is the only time in the Gospels where Christ’s preaching and teaching is explicitly defined as “the word of God” (ho logos tou theou) (cf. Lk 5:1,3). Thus, as in the synagogue of Nazareth, the Word of God now becomes a living reality in Jesus. It is no longer only the Word written in the sacred Scriptures but comes alive in the person of Jesus. This invites, nay urges, those who hear and see this in Jesus to respond. In such a context, what happens next with the calling of the first disciples is an exemplary and concrete response to the Word of God, proclaimed and lived by Jesus himself. It is interesting to note in Simon’s response to Jesus the reference to that reality of the “Word”: “Master, […] at your command [literally at Your word, cf. RSV]I will lower the nets.” For clarity’s sake, here the original Greek term for “word” is “rema”, unlike “logos” in the quoted expression “Word of God” at the beginning of the passage. The term “rema” indicates a word “said,” “announced,” “proclaimed”, which applied to Christ implies a communication that tends to be realized and fulfilled. In this way, the Word (logos) of God is in full harmony and complementarity with the Word (rema) of Christ, which thus becomes the Good News, that is, the “Gospel” of the living God in every one of Jesus’ words and deeds.

This concrete and personal “Word” of Christ makes Simon forget his fatigue and failure, as he actually admitted: “we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing.” The Word is then accepted by Simon with docility and fulfilled in obedience. (Why Simon was docile at that moment is really a mystery. He could have said to Jesus: Look, I do know a lot more about fishing than you do!). In any case, only in Simon’s humble and simple response, the Word of Christ becomes a source of new energy, helping to “put out into the deep,” and opening new horizons. The Word leads to miracle, thanks to the faith of the person who accepts it. As Jesus often said to those healed by Him: “Your faith has saved you!” (cf., e.g., Lk 17:19; 18:42; Mk 10:52), we can imagine Him using similar words to Simon after the prodigious catch: “Your faith has done the miracle!”

At this stage, it seems appropriate to state again the importance of announcing the Word of God in arousing and in living the Christian missionary faith. Every Christian vocation is born from listening to the Word of God, announced and fulfilled by Christ and then transmitted by his disciples. This is what Saint Paul affirms: “Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word [rema] of Christ” (Rom 10:17). It is, therefore, essential that there be someone sent to share it, and to proclaim it with courage, clarity, and fidelity – even, like Christ, unto death. Saint Paul makes the same point: “And how can they believe in him [the Lord] of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent?” (Rom 10:14-15a). Thus, God’s question in the first reading will always remain relevant: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” And He is still waiting for the response from those who listen to Him today, like that of the prophet Isaiah: “Here I am, send me!”

On the other hand, it is also true that the Word with the power of the Spirit is capable of renewing our commitment to Christian and apostolic life! It can bring the flagging faithful back to their first love for God and for Christ. Therefore, every disciple of Christ is urged to feed on His Word again and again. Listening to the Word with attention, receiving it with humility, and practicing it with faith will certainly help the disciple to experience a new “miraculous catch” the Lord always promises his faithful disciples, especially at critical moments of failure, despair, and loss.

2. “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” After the miraculous catch, Simon Peter recognized his own inadequacy and shortcomings. What he then said to Jesus is something of a profession of faith. (That is probably why St. Luke changed his name here from “Simon” to “Simon Peter”).  Indeed, he no longer calls Jesus “Master” as before, but “Lord”, the title of the glorious Christ like that of God Himself. Moreover, Peter fell to his knees before Jesus, like a man before a king or even God. His request to Jesus “depart from me” may seem bizarre to many modern listeners, because it sounds like a refusal. These words, instead, express the awareness of a great human unworthiness before divine reality, as we also hear in today’s first Old Testament reading. The prophet Isaiah who, seeing God manifesting Himself, exclaimed even more explicitly and poetically: “Woe is me, I am doomed! / For I am a man of unclean lips, / living among a people of unclean lips; / yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Is 6:5; Reading I).

The same thought comes from Simon Peter’s mouth, who then says: “[Depart from me, Lord,] for I am a sinful man.” This indicates Simon Peter’s feeling of unworthiness as a human being in the face of God’s overwhelming presence standing before him. This feeling of profound inadequacy is the first necessary step to be able to fully accept God’s call. It is also the attitude necessary to be able to live well the received vocation. By grace we are called, and by grace we are sent. Those who do not remember constantly this truth can hardly fulfil the divine mission entrusted to them.

Jesus’ reaction before Simon was the same as God’s before a human being overwhelmed by divine greatness: “Do not be afraid!” The phrase expresses divine welcome and benevolence inviting him not to be afraid of God’s closeness, but to rejoice in His presence which does not pay attention to the human condition of unworthiness of such divine company. In fact, in saying this, Jesus called Simon to start a new life with Him without fear, and to fulfil a new mission like His that forever changes the identity of the one called: “from now on you will be catching people” or “fisher of people”.

3. “Fisher of people.” From the historical viewpoint, Jesus certainly had a great sense of humor and a very sharp mind to indicate a beautiful analogy between Simon Peter’s profession and his new mission. Jesus’ use of “fishers of people [literally men]” occurs also in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew (cf. Mk 1:17; Mt 4:19), but unlike them, Luke uses an original Greek expression for “fisher” which is even more suggestive and profound: zōgrōn “one-who-catches-alive” (people). Thus, perhaps the Evangelist wanted to emphasize the life-giving dimension in the action of “fishing” people, as the Church Fathers like St. Jerome noted: “for fish, taken out of the water, die; but the Apostles have fished us out of the sea that is this world not to kill us but to bring us from death to life” (Sermon on Psalm 42).

The figure of the fisherman-apostle makes us further investigate a curious point. Why did Jesus want to call first a fisherman, entrusting him de facto with the honor and the burden of being the “first” of his Apostles? And why did Jesus choose fishermen on lake of Gennèsaret to form the nucleus or, the foundation of those whom he will later send to collaborate with him in the mission of evangelization? What St. Paul taught with divine authority clarifies a little bit this action of God: “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong” (1Cor 1:27). Nonetheless, why fishermen, and not men of other equally humble professions such as carpenters or farmers, who were so many in Israel?

(At this point someone would answer me, “Father, I don’t know, you will have to ask Jesus that question!”). Yes, this is an inscrutable mystery of divine grace. However, if grace always presupposes nature (Gratia supponit naturam), as the scholastic tradition with St. Thomas Aquinas Doctor of the Church teaches us, perhaps there was some reason behind the “selection” of Christ for fishermen as his apostles. And, vice versa, a reflection on this choice of Christ helps us to understand something of his desire that Peter, like every disciple of his, would become a “fisher of people.”

The answer perhaps comes from the very nature of fishermen. They are those who, for work and for their way of life, must go out every day, indeed every night, to face risks, unexpected events, and often even failures, without ever complaining, losing heart, or giving up. Life has taught them and constantly trained them to be persistent in hope, and determined in patience, until they reach some positive catch. Will these be the necessary and therefore desirable qualities in Jesus’ mind for those apostles whom He has chosen to be “fishers of people”? Is it also true for His present-day missionary disciples? We should never forget that we are called to be, above all, “fishers,” going out every day, taking risks to make a successful “catch of people”. Let us reflect on this during this week and let us raise to the Lord the following beautiful missionary prayer, prepared by this Sunday’s liturgy (Collect Prayer V Sunday Year C, Roman Missal Italian edition 1983), to express gratitude for His grace offered to us, His unworthy and sinful missionaries of His holy Gospel:

God of infinite greatness,
which you entrust to our unclean lips
and to our fragile hands the task of bringing to people
the proclamation of the Gospel, sustain us with your Spirit,
because your word, welcomed by open and generous hearts,
bear fruit in every part of the earth.

Useful points to consider:

Pope Francis, Angelus, Saint Peter’s Square, Sunday, 10 February 2019:

Simon responds with an objection: “Master, we have toiled all night and took nothing!” And, as an expert fisherman, he could have added: ‘If we didn’t catch anything during the night, we aren’t going to catch anything during the day’. However, inspired by Jesus’ presence and enlightened by His Word, he says: “But at your word I will let down the nets” ([Lk 5] v. 5). It is the response of faith, which we too are called to give; it is the attitude of willingness that the Lord asks of all his disciples, especially those who are tasked with responsibilities in the Church. And Peter’s trustful obedience creates a prodigious result: “when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish” ([Lk 5] v. 6).

It is a miraculous catch, a sign of the power of Jesus’ word: when we place ourselves generously in his service, he accomplishes great things in us. This is what he does in each of us: he asks us to welcome him on the boat of our life, in order to set out anew with him and to sail a new sea, one which proves to be full of surprises. His call to go out into the open sea of the humanity of our time, in order to be witnesses to goodness and mercy, gives new meaning to our existence, which is often at risk of collapsing upon itself.

The greatest miracle that Jesus accomplished for Simon and the other tired and discouraged fishermen is not so much the net full of fish, as having helped them not to fall victim to disappointment and discouragement in the face of failure. He prepared them to become proclaimers of and witnesses to his word and the Kingdom of God. And the disciples’ response was immediate and unreserved: “when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him” ([Lk 5] v. 11). May the Blessed Virgin, model of prompt adherence to God’s will, help us to feel the allure of the Lord’s call, and make us willing to cooperate with him to spread his word of salvation everywhere.

Benedict XVI, Homily, Mass, Imposition of the Pallium and Conferral of the Fisherman’s Ring for the Beginning of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome, St. Peter’s Square, Sunday, 24 April 2005: And Simon, who was not yet called Peter, gave the wonderful reply: “Master, at your word I will let down the nets.” And then came the conferral of his mission: “Do not be afraid. Henceforth you will be catching men” (Lk 5:1-11). Today too the Church and the successors of the Apostles are told to put out into the deep sea of history and to let down the nets, so as to win men and women over to the Gospel – to God, to Christ, to true life. The Fathers made a very significant commentary on this singular task. This is what they say: for a fish, created for water, it is fatal to be taken out of the sea, to be removed from its vital element to serve as human food. But in the mission of a fisher of men, the reverse is true. We are living in alienation, in the salt waters of suffering and death; in a sea of darkness without light. The net of the Gospel pulls us out of the waters of death and brings us into the splendour of God’s light, into true life. It is really true: as we follow Christ in this mission to be fishers of men, we must bring men and women out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God. It is really so: the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.