My brothers and sisters in Christ, in the readings that the Church gives
to us today we hear of three calls from the Lord. In the Old Testament
the Lord calls Isaiah, in the letter to the Corinthians the call of Saint
Paul and in the Holy Gospel the call of Saint Peter. In the Holy Gospel
our Lord calls Saint Peter in a very beautiful, in a very dramatic way.
Our Lord Jesus is teaching, giving the word of God and the crowds eagerly
press in close. They want to hear every word from our Lord, they want to
be near the Divine Lord, and so they press in very close, they are eager
to be near.
And you and I we ask ourselves: Oh Lord, do I have that eagerness?
Do I have that hunger, that zeal to be close to You oh Lord and hear Your
Holy Word which is life for me? Then our Lord Jesus in the midst of this
great crowd steps into a boat moored at the side of the sea of Galilee.
He steps into the boat of Simon Peter, and the boat is his livelihood,
and so our Lord is literally stepping into the center of the life of Saint
Peter, and Peter’s life will never be the same again. If only, and this
is a big "If", if only he accepts the invitation to join his life to the
person of Jesus and the saving work of Jesus. If he will answer the call,
his life will never, ever be the same. First, Saint Peter and our Lord
are in the shallow water, where it’s safe, where it’s easy; and then our
Lord tells Peter to set out into the deeps, where the water is very deep
and dark, and then the Good Lord asks Peter to lower his nets for a catch
of fish. Peter responds: "Master, we’ve been casting them over and over
and over again all night long and we’ve caught absolutely nothing. We have
through the long darkness of the night thrown our nets into the deeps and
caught absolutely nothing." Jesus looks at Simon with eyes that say: "But
will you trust Me? Will you obey Me? I am not going to give you a dissertation
on how this is going to work out, will you trust Me? Will you obey me?"
Thanks be to God, Simon responds: "If You say so, I will lower the nets."
Why do I say: Thanks be to God that Peter responds? This is a crucial moment;
what if Simon had said no? No Lord we’ve been at it too long, I’m too tired,
the thought of casting my nets overboard... I’ve just cleaned them, I refuse
to do it again, it’s silliness. What if Simon had said no? Well, we would
not have that window there in honor of Saint Peter; we wouldn’t even know
of Simon as Saint Peter; we wouldn’t know about him at all as a matter
of fact. If he had said no, Simon would have eventually died, and he would’ve
been forgotten about two thousand years ago and he never would’ve been
thought of again, because he would’ve been a rather ordinary person, there
would not have been anything extraordinary to remember him for. You see,
some times the call of our Lord Jesus comes to us and it will not come
again; our Lord speaks to Peter in a very particular way that day, and
if Peter had said no, the call would not have come again, at least in the
same powerful way.
There are sometimes when the Lord calls and will not call again, and
I suspect this is one of those times for Saint Peter. When you and I, we
hear this gospel, we pray: "Lord Jesus, I dread the thought of saying no
to You, I dread the thought of missing Your voice. I dread the thought
of living my life having said no to holiness, I want to follow You when
You call me, I want to give You everything Lord." And so, Saint Peter obeys
despite many misgivings, and the nets descend into the deep, dark water
and it all seems so useless. You see, they fish at night, not during the
day, there is no fish active during the day in the sea of Galilee; it seems
so useless, and the Lord bids him anyway: "Cast your nets", and the nets
then come up, and they are filled with more fish than Saint Peter has ever
seen in his life, there is so much abundance in the presence of the Lord
Jesus that the abundance of fish overflows into the boats of his companions.
There is so much abundance that the fish - the grace - is still overflowing
into the Church into each one of our lives. There is so much abundance
that it can only come from the hand of God. And so Saint Peter sees: "The
man who is on the boat with me is God with me", and he is overwhelmed and
he falls at the feet of God and he says: "Lead me Lord", no longer just
‘Master’, "Lead me Lord, for I am a sinful man." He is so little, and our
Lord Jesus is so great that he is overwhelmed at the presence of God. He
falls at His feet; it reminds us of Isaiah in the Old Testament, he sees
this mighty presence of God and he says: "I am doomed, for I am a man of
unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen
the Lord."
Saint Paul, when he came face to face with the Lord -in the window
over there- he responds the call in the reading today (the second one):
"I am the least of the apostles." There is that awe in humility in the
presence of God’s greatness.
Jesus then assures Saint Peter: "Do not be afraid." He says to Isaiah,
God the Father says: "Whom shall we send? Who will go for us?" To Saint
Paul He says: "You will suffer to bring the gospel to the nations." And
what is the response of Saint Peter and his companions? They left everything
and became His followers. At the time when they had the greatest wealth
they’d ever had in their life (can you imagine how many fish to sink almost
two boats?) They leave all of that wealth and they become His followers.
Isaiah says: "Here I am, send me." Saint Paul says: "What I am, I am by
God’s grace." These readings then, my brothers and sisters listen, they
speak of a universal call to holiness, a call that is universal, that is
given to each one of us; we must respond. Our eternal soul depends upon
our response.
My prayers of pastor every day I offer Mass for you is this: That each
of us without exception at Saints Peter and Paul Parish will eagerly accept
God’s call to holiness; He offers it to us each very different ways, He
offers it to us and we dare not refuse. And so we listen carefully: "Oh
Lord give me ears open to Your call. Oh give me a heart eager to be near
You. Give me a mind silent enough to hear Your insistent call to me, to
stand at Your side and to be holy and walk the path that leads to heaven.
Ray Adams is one of the seminarians for our spirituality year, as you
know, one of the five, and our Lord has given to him this week a very extraordinary
call to holiness. The Holy Gospel has the extraordinary call of Saint Peter,
our Lord has given a very extraordinary call to Ray Adams. Ray has seen
the doctor several times this week and he just found out a couple of days
ago that he is diagnosed with Lymphoma, which is cancer in the lymph nodes
on one side of his neck, Ray is very young, he is in his early twenties,
and the thought of cancer was never even a possibility for him. Every Friday
evening the seminarians and I, we gather for the scrutiny of the Word,
which is, we take the Sunday gospel, we read it and then we spend forty
five minutes in silence letting the gospel shed light upon our lives, is
like a search light that shines upon our lives and reveals what we have
been doing or haven’t been doing for the Good Lord, and then each of us
shares what the Lord has shown us in that forty five minutes of silence
before the Holy Gospel.
Ray’s reflections on this gospel on Friday evening was wonderful, he
had just found out about the cancer and he said that up to now he’s been
in the boat with the Lord in the shallow water, in the water where is safer,
and now the Lord Jesus is taking him to water that is very deep, water
that is dark and is saying to him: "Ray, will you trust Me? Will you lower
your nets into the darkness?" Ray says that he sees himself alone in the
boat with Jesus and the Lord is asking Ray to trust Him and to lower the
ropes into the dark, into the unknown, and he said: "If I can just trust
Him, He’ll bring a rich catch of graces which is something I’ve wanted
for a very long time."
Thanks be to God Ray sees his cancer as an invitation to greater holiness
and closer union to the crucified Lord Jesus. God has given him a great
grace in the midst of his cancer, and the Lord is asking him: "Will you
trust Me? Will you cast your nets into the water that is dark and deep?"
Our Lord is issuing to him a great invitation to holiness an extraordinary
call and we pray as a parish that each of the seminarians respond to this
call of holiness.
Mike Tiernen then told Ray about his meditation on the gospel, and
he reflected that he had been in the nearby boat with the other seminarians
and that Jesus wants to fill their boats with the huge overflow of graces
that comes from Ray’s boat. Jesus wants to bless each of them an the entire
spirituality year and the formation of our new seminarians for the twenty-first
century. The Lord wants to bless all of them with this huge abundance of
graces that overflows into their boats as well through the darkness and
suffering that Ray will experience in the coming months. God is issuing
to him and to each of the seminarians and to all of the seminarians in
the Archdiocese a great call to holiness. We need holy priests, we need
heroic priests for the work at hand in the twenty-first century. The Lord
is laying a seed bed of holiness and the Lord uses Ray in a very powerful
way to be an intercessor for that holiness. Let us pray for him and for
his deep profound healing; we need holy priests like the five young man
before us, let us pray for his healing, Ray’s and through him for the seminarians
whom the Lord has brought to us. Let us pray that the Lord will give many
heroic young man for the priesthood for the twenty-first century in the
Archdiocese of Denver.
