Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 7, 2016
The scripture presents us with three prominent characters: Isaiah, Paul and Peter. The three were confronted with the grandeur, the goodness and holiness of God. They felt humbled and became keenly aware of their unworthiness. When one comes closer to God one suddenly sees with new clarity the depth of one’s sins, just as we can see stains on an apparently clear window when the sun’s bright rays hit it. But the good news is that God’s mercy is always greater than our sins. Not only does He forgive our sins, he restores us to a state of holiness.
The gospel reading describes an interesting story of Peter and his friends who were fishermen. They went to the Lake of Gennesaret to fish. They worked hard the whole night without catching one single fish. I can imagine the frustration, the disappointment and the resignation in their eyes. At daybreak, Jesus came to the lake and borrowed one of their boats to preach to the people. After preaching, he asked Peter “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch (Duc in altum!)” (Lk. 5:6). And Peter replied to him, “Lord we have toiled the whole night but could not catch anything but at your command, at your word I will cast out the nets once again.” He did and caught a great number of fish so that their nets were tearing. What a miracle!
Our lives are always full of success stories and failures. We always desire to succeed in all things. Unfortunately, we don’t always succeed in all we do. We are often confronted with the painful reality of failures. The first enemy we have to face after failures is our ego. As soon as things start going wrong, our defense mechanisms kick in, tempting us to do what we can to save face. For example, we may adopt any one of several attitudes like denial, chasing our losses or hedonic editing. Denial refers to the difficulty of admitting that we have made mistakes and trying to put it right. Chasing our losses denotes an unwillingness to draw a line under a decision or action we regret, leading us to cause more damage. Hedonic editing, in turn, describes our efforts to convince ourselves that the mistake doesn’t matter – we try bundling our losses with our gains or finding some way to interpret our failures as successes.
In many cases, too many people turn to resignation and frustration. That was the case of Peter. Jesus arrives at this point of resignation. His word is: don’t give up, get up and try again – Duc in altum, lower the nets again in deep water. If you are at the point of resignation or frustration today because of failed dreams, failed projects, disappointments in your work place, your family and friends, or relationships after you may have invested so much time and energy, Jesus says to you today: Stand up; don’t give up, lower the nets again for a catch! Don’t try to predict whether your next attempt will actually sink or swim. Just cast the nets into wider and deeper water, at the command of the Lord. You always can begin anew. Always view the past with gratitude, live the present with enthusiasm and look forward to the future with faith and confidence in God.
Fr. Sylvester Ajunwa, Ph.D.