Thursday of the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time
In today’s gospel, Simon Peter is not in the best mood because he has been out all night fishing and has not caught anything. However, Jesus commandeers his boat so that he can preach to the crowds from it. At the conclusion of his preaching he tells Simon Peter to cast out his net again. Simon complains about this because he hasn’t caught anything and just want to go home to bed. But he does what Jesus asks and caught so many fish that their nets were in danger of tearing.
This clues Simon Peter in to the fact that he is in the divine presence through the presence of this man Jesus. His response is interesting. He falls to his knees before Jesus and says “depart from me Lord, I am a sinful man.” He recognizes his own sinfulness, and his unworthiness to be in the presence of Jesus.
We modern people have our own subtle way of doing the same thing. When we notice a sinful pattern in our lives, we will try to hide it from Jesus and fix it ourselves. So that later we can go to Jesus and say “look, I fixed it!” There are two problems with this strategy. First, Jesus already knows about this sinful pattern, so there is no point in hiding it from him. Second, we can’t fix it ourselves. Rather, we need to take our sinfulness to him and let him forgive us and heal us. So don’t try to hide anything from Jesus. Instead, bring him everything that is broken in you and let him heal it.
Reflection by Fr. Aquinas Keusenkothen, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections