“Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him.” (Luke 5:10-11).
I have been reflecting upon the story of when the disciples were fishing in the Lake of Galilee and having caught no fish, saw Christ who asked them to try again.
“‘I’m going out to fish,’ Simon Peter told them, and they said, ‘We’ll go with you.’ So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus… He said, ‘Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.’ When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!... Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish you have just caught.’ So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.” (John 21:3-11).
You see, this was mere days after Christ’s Passion and Death. It was mere days after the disciples had betrayed Christ and disowned Him, and they were surely feeling so terribly terribly sad.
And I consider what these men did in the days following the Death of their God… Well, they tried to go back to exactly as things were before. They got back into their boats – for they had forgotten that they had been called to be fishers of men – and they tried to go back to the fish…
In the Gospel of Saint Luke – at the moment of conversion and calling – there is a foreshadowing of what was to come in this moment after the Resurrection…
“When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.’… When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break… When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’… Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him.” (Luke 5:4-11).
You see, the disciples tried to forget about their conversion and their calling when the times became difficult. They tried to do other things and distract themselves with other cares and worries. They tried to get back to the mundane. And what happened when they tried to do that? Their plans did not work, and they did not manage to catch any fish…
And I have been reflecting on that today. Because that failure – for the SECOND time – was actually an invitation to start again. It was an invitation for a re-conversion – a reconnection with the moment in the past where the disciples had felt the call to conversion most strongly and where they knew that God was calling them most carefully.
And I have been thinking about that in my own failures today because they seem to me an invitation to look back at the only thing that ever really works for me…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.