HIS HANDS REMAIN

Thursday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 5:1-11

The Gospel today was the Gospel on my ordination day. I was only twenty-eight years old when I heard it that day. I could barely empathize with Simon Peter then when he seemed to have complained to the Lord, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing.” I was just about to start “working” then for the Lord.

Ten years later, I know very well not only what Simon Peter meant but also how he felt when he said those words to Jesus. I have had my nights of wrestling with doubts, saying, “Is it worth it?”. I have had my days of asking my self, “Will this work out?” I had moments when I do not only failed but felt that I my self was a failure. But ten years are not enough for me to forget that Simon Peter nonetheless trusted the Lord and obeyed Him. “…but at Your command I will lower the nets,” Simon Peter also said. What followed – the miraculous catch of fish – likewise I keep in my heart.

When Simon Peter and his friends went fishing all by themselves, they caught nothing. Though seasoned fishermen that they were, they pulled ashore with empty nets. But when they went fishing with Jesus, they had a catch that was more than what their nets could hold. I know the difference not because I am a keen reader of the Gospel but because I catch nothing, too, when I venture without Jesus.

After the great catch, Simon Peter pleaded that Jesus leave him. Should he not all the more beg Jesus to stay with him and go out with him to the sea each time he would fish? Should he not propose to Jesus to be his business associate? Simon Peter realized that Jesus did more than just a miraculous catch of fish. Jesus caught him instead.

Simon Peter must have felt that he was but a tadpole in a possible school of fish. To his estimation, he should not belong to the company that Jesus ought to keep. He was too tainted, marred, blemished, dirty, stained, and sinful to be too close to the Lord and be counted among His chosen ones. But while fairytales are fiction, Jesus’ kiss alone can truly turn a frog into a prince. He made Simon Peter the Prince of the Apostles. Jesus’ love transformed the fisherman into a fisher of men. Having been caught himself Simon Peter was called and chosen to catch others for Jesus.

After ten years, the same love of the Lord for me abides. When my bishop ordained me, he placed his hands on my head and then, after a very short while, he withdrew them. But the hands of Jesus remain.