Luke 5:1-11
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
The First Disciples
5 Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret; 2 and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the [a]people from the boat. 4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but [b]I will do as You say and let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 7 so they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ [c]feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were [d]James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” 11 When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.
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Yesterday’s gospel reading spoke powerfully to me. Fr. Wilbert, the young Filipino priest, gave a very eye opening homily. In the gospel, Jesus, the carpenter, was giving instructions to Peter, the fisherman, on how to fish. Peter, already tired from casting the nets and getting nothing was probably thinking, “why is Jesus telling me to cast the nets again?”. “I know better, I do this for a living”.
And yet Peter obeyed anyway, and the Lord revealed his wisdom, glory and power when the nets could not even hold the load of fish that were caught.
How many times in our service do we feel we could not be successful and we should cancel an event based on what we assess? There was a time when I was asked to lead an Marriage Enrichment Retreat (MER) for CFC. There were only a few couples who signed up. Based on the costing, I concluded that this won’t be financially successful and I told my leader that we should just cancel this event. I also just recovering from being sick so I was feeling a bit lazy. Thank God the Lord spoke powerfully through my leader. He told to me to continue the MER, the rest of my household members offered to sponsor the food. The weekend resulted in a very personal and touching MER, where 7 couples where able to give their personal vows for their spouses during the renewal of vows, something that could be very time consuming with a larger group.
How many times do we feel we should not attend an activity because we feel lazy or not up to it, ATTEND anyway!
How many times do we feel we do not want to serve because we feel we are not capable and skilled, SERVE anyway!
How many times we feel that what God is asking us to do something that is too much for us handle, OBEY anyway!
Imagine if Jesus gave up on carrying the cross for us and suffering the painful crucifixion, would we be saved?
Lord, thank for the powerful theme for this year for our community, may we truly walk in the footsteps of the first disciple, our dear Mother Mary, when she asked the servants to “Do Whatever He tells you”. Amen!
Tito Gee