When I said no to God.

The other day, the Church phone rang and there was a man who was requesting a ride, he wanted me to come get him, allow him in my car, and bring him to another place, I’m not sure where he wanted me to take him.  I was completely uncomfortable with that request.  I was unavailable to get him, so I did not have the option to exit my comfort zone and get him.  Had I been available, I doubt that I would have gone to get him.  I recognized his voice, he was a man that I met at a coffee shop some months back.  On the phone he informed me that he was now homeless.  Maybe I was wrong to tell him no. Maybe that was Jesus trying to enter my boat.

How does Grace work?  How does my spiritual life work?

The story in the Gospel today is the story of the Lord Jesus entering he life of these fishermen.

After fishing all day, they have caught nothing.  Catching nothing means that they have earned no income for the day.  (1) Simon is tired, frustrated, and in need.  In the ancient world, the boat was not merely a car, it was Simon’s entire livelihood.  

My car is not my livelihood, it’s just a means of transportation.  Without his boat, Simon would become homeless, he would no longer be able to support his family, there would be no more food on the table.  Notice that Simon does noting, Jesus shows up on the scene and bursts into Simon’s life.

Not only does Jesus board Simon’s boat with no invitation or permission, but He first preaches to the people on the shore, then He starts barking orders at Simon. (2) Jesus recognizes the need, and He invites Simon and the others to trust Him.

“Duc in altum”

“Put out into the deep”

Peter is a professional fisherman and here is a stranger, a carpenter, an invader of his boat, telling him to put out into the deep. And yet, (3) they listen to and trust Him.  They throw their nets into the sea, they put out into the deep.  

Perhaps God was calling me, the other day, to risk everything, to go pick up a stranger who was homeless and minister to His needs.  I said no to that invitation.

When Simon and the others pull their nets out of the deep water, they see (4) the result of the trust, they catch more than they can hold.  We do not know what God offers us unless we accept the invitation to trust Him. Unless we put out into deep waters not knowing what giving up control in our lives would mean.  

A place in my life where I did hear God’s invitation and trust Him was in my call to priesthood, specifically in Alabama.  What God has given me in these last almost five years of my life is more than I could even begin to articulate.  The Graces God has given me by my putting out into the deep of Priesthood in Alabama, are more than I could even imagine gaining in any walk of life I could have chosen for my own. 

Simon, after receiving the fish God gives him from putting out into the deep, (5) reacts to God’s Goodness with Humility.  When they arrive back to shore, Simon says to the Lord, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful Man.”  It is not guilt that causing Simon to say this, rather it is gratitude.  When Simon recognizes that God gave him more than he got get on his own, he says these words because he cannot hold what God gives him.  With every sin that I have committed my boat because less able to float.  With every occasion I say no to the Lord’s invitation my boat becomes smaller, I drill another hole into my boat, and it sinks more.  

At Mass, when I proclaim the words of John the Baptist just before Communion, Behold the Lamb of God, I become teary eyed, with all my sinfulness at the forefront of my mind, not out of a sense of guilt, but out of a sense of gratitude.  

As I hold up the Eucharist, I see God has placed Himself in my hands.  From my sinfulness, I am too weak to hold him.  In my shortcomings, He is heavy in my hands.  In my failings, I begin to sink.  The vessel I am is too damaged to hold all the Grace that God gives me.  Yet He continues to shower me with His blessings.  The more I cooperate with His plan, the more I surrender into His will, the more I experience what He has in store for me.  

I will never know what God was offering me the other day with the call from the homeless man.  Yet I will grow from my ‘no’.  God will continue to call me.  God fills me with more than I can hold and slowly builds me to hold more.  His Grace is what fulfills me, I must learn to trust Him, His plan, His will, His call, His command.  I must learn to let go of my will, my plan, my desire, my way, my designs, and my ways. 

After Simon shows the Lord his humility the Lord builds him up, gives him more, gives him a greater call, give him the ability to be more than he was before he meets the Lord. (6) The Lord calls the poor fisherman to become the prince of the Apostles, for him and his friends to become the first evangelists.

This story shows us the pattern of the life of Faith, the life of grace, and the pattern by which God calls us.

 1.     We realize that we are in some sort of need.

2.     God bursts into our life in a way that we don’t expect and invites us to trust Him to meet that need.

3.     We say yes and trust Him.  We obey His command.

4.     We see the result of trusting God, we see the abundance that God gives us.

5.     We respond to what God offers us with acts of humility and contrition, with a spirit of gratitude, we turn to God and admit that we are not capable of hold all that He offers us, we trust Him to give us greater capacity through our surrender to His holy will.

6.     He then calls us to spread the Good News, to be Evangelists.  Once we have seen what God has offered and given us, we show others the way to Him.

Reverend Nicholas Napolitano

5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

6 February 2022

St John the Baptist, Magnolia Springs, AL