The Mass begins with a cry of unshakable hope “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” The Lord is with me in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, the Lord comes to me in Holy Communion. What can separate me from Him? What can make me fear?
Yet I know my weakness; I have ever before my eyes the remembrance of my failures and infidelities. How great, then, is my need to humbly repeat the beautiful prayer of the Gradual: “Save us, O Lord, and pardon our sins... Help us, O God, our Saviour, for the glory of Your Name.” Yes, in spite of the continual help of divine grace, in spite of so many confessions and communions, I have to acknowledge new failures every day; daily, I must begin anew. The struggle is arduous and painful, but in today’s Epistle, St. Paul reminds us that “the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.” This thought is one of consolation, hope and confidence; it does not, however, prevent us from longing for freedom and complete redemption. This is what the Apostle experienced when he said: “We also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body in Christ Jesus.” The more we suffer because of our wretchedness, the more we should run to Jesus, with full confidence in the power of His Redemption.
Today’s Gospel is a practical demonstration of the words of Jesus: “Without Me, you can do nothing.” Simon and his companions had been fishing all night and had caught nothing; that is all they had been able to do by themselves. If we have had some little experience in the spiritual life, we will recognise that this is often our situation too. How many efforts we have made to rid ourself of this or that attachment, to forget injuries, to adapt ourself to our neighbour’s way of doing things, to subject our will to another’s! And yet, after all these attempts, we find our hands empty, like Peter’s nets. Let us not be discouraged; if we can humbly acknowledge our failure instead of feeling annoyance because of it, the failure itself will turn into victory. So it happened to Peter after he had admitted publicly that he had “taken nothing.” St. Therese of the Child Jesus comments: “Had the Apostle caught some small fish, perhaps our divine Master would not have worked a miracle; but he had caught nothing, and so through the power and goodness of God his nets were soon filled with great fishes. Such is Our Lord’s way. He gives as God, with divine generosity, but He insists on humility of heart.”
In spite of our good will to advance in virtue, our Lord will not permit us to have any success until He sees that we are thoroughly convinced of our own weakness and inability; to give us this conviction, He lets us, as He let Peter, “work all night without catching anything.” But afterwards, as He sees our growing awareness of our poverty and our willingness to admit it openly, He will come to our aid. We must, then, have great faith in Him, never allowing ourselves to give up through lack of success. Every day, relying “on His word,” we must begin anew. If we have learned not to trust in our own strength, we must also learn to have complete confidence in the divine aid. If we have caught nothing until now, perhaps it is our lack of unshakable confidence that is the cause, and this deficiency, besides being displeasing to Jesus, paralyzes our spiritual life. Then let us repeat with Peter in a similar cry of confidence: “in verbo tuo laxabo rete,” Lord, at Thy word, I will let down the net. And let us repeat it every day, every moment, without ever growing weary.
(Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy)