5 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) 7 February 2010

I’m a believer in Providence. From the dawn of creation to this day of February 2010, God has never left us, His people, to our own devices. Sometimes things have occurred in my life that seemed to happen just by chance. Looking back now, I can see that these were part of God’s plan for me being worked out. My sins are the only part of my life that are not of God’s doing. They are mine to admit and confess always knowing that the loving God is there to forgive.

Today’s Gospel shows us Jesus getting into Peter’s boat. There were other boats besides his, but it is into Peter’s boat that He steps. Was this by chance? Was it part of the plan of God? It seems to me that Jesus knew exactly what He was doing. He wanted to lead Peter to a new place in his life that would change him from being a fisherman to becoming an Apostle.

The way Jesus does this is through a fishing experience. Jesus uses Peter’s boat as a pulpit to speak to the people. When finished speaking, Jesus suggests that being on the lake it would make sense to cast the nets out before returning to the shore. Peter is not keen as he says that after a night of fishing nothing was caught. Then Peter makes a hugely important statement, “but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.”

The catch of fish was so great that it filled two boats. Was it that Peter was not a great fisherman? Or was this an act of God to ‘catch’ Peter? It seems to me that Jesus wanted to capture Peter and He did. Listen to Peter’s reaction, “leave me Lord; I am a sinful man”.

At this moment Peter knows with every fibre of his being that he is the presence of someone really special. He feels so unworthy to be in the presence of Jesus. It is not that he wants to leave Jesus in fact the opposite is the case. It is that he feels so out of place.

Many years ago, I accompanied a bishop to the Vatican as he went to meet Pope John Paul II. While the two of them met, I was sitting outside waiting for the bishop to come out of the Pope’s study and then we would return to the monastery. The door opened but instead of the bishop it was the Pope standing in front of me. I nearly collapsed with shock. I felt so out of place and I didn’t know what to say! The Pope rescued the situation by simply saying ‘Hello’ and invited me to come into his study. There we had a chat, just the two of us, for a few minutes. A few photographs were taken and he gave me a gift of a rosary beads for each member of my family.

At every Mass we are in the presence of Jesus just as Peter was by the Lake of Gennesaret. It is a privilege for us to have this access to the presence of Jesus. In His company, like Peter, we begin our Mass by asking to be made less unworthy of meeting Him by confessing our sins. Just before Holy Communion, we return to this same sense of needing to be made worthy when we pray, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”

When we think about this sacred moment of meeting the Son of God present in our midst, perhaps we could think of the daring honesty of Isaiah in the first reading when he says, ‘I am a man unclean lips.’ Isaiah’s lips are purified by the angle touching his lips with a live coal. Aren’t we so privileged when we remember that we are purified by the Precious Blood of Jesus?

Aidan Troy, C.P. [Aodhán ó Troighthigh, C.P.]