Jesus looks the fishermen over and chooses the boat owned by Simon Peter. He gets into Simon's boat, sits down, and asks him and his companions to pull out a short distance from the shore, where he begins once more to preach. Now the power of his voice is amplified by the water, because open water is a good conductor of sound.
After he has finished preaching, Jesus says to Simon, "Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch." Simon protests. He and his buddies had been out all night and caught nothing. But he says "yes" to this charismatic stranger. Miraculously, they catch such a huge, heavy load of fish that they have to ask the fishermen in the boat next to theirs - James and John - to put part of their catch in James' and John's boat so their nets wouldn't rupture. Soon Jesus tells these amazed - and even frightened - men, "Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men." (Luke 5: 1-11.)
My friends, we are like boats, moored by the unknown lakes of our hearts. Waters so deep that they are frightening to enter. Oh, sometimes we'll travel a little offshore and throw in a net, a thought, a prayer, to get to know ourselves a little better - discover our talents, or that there are people whom we love more than we thought, or that we can even do things we never thought we could do - but this may not even be a daily occurrence. It's far easier to stay close to land so that we don't "rock our boats."
Then, one day, even if we have kept him at a distance, Jesus decides to enter the boat of our life. Bishop Robert Barron calls this moment "the invasion of grace":
"Without being invited, Jesus simply gets into the fisherman’s boat. This is to insinuate himself in the most direct way into Simon’s life. And without further ado, he begins to give orders, first asking Simon to put out from the shore and then to go out into the deep. This represents the invasion of grace. The single most important decision that you will ever make is this: Will you cooperate with Jesus once he decides to get into your boat?
"In many ways, everything else in your life is secondary....When the Lord Jesus Christ gets into your boat, he will always lead you to the depths. Duc in altum, as St. John Paul II loved to quote. More dangerous? Yes. More exciting? Yes." (Word on Fire Daily Gospel Reflection for Sept. 5, 2019).
Only God our Father knows the deepest waters of our hearts, because God created them. Only God knows all that we are capable of becoming, of doing. God is Love - and all our fears of our own "deep waters" do nothing but keep us separated from Love and separated from ourselves. If we accept God in the Person of Jesus, true God and True Man, into the boats of our lives, Jesus will take us on the ride of our lives, into the deepest waters of ourselves.
This is the daily Divine Call to us: to trust Jesus and dive into life, as His first followers did. Think of the lives they led after they encountered Jesus: not only caring for their families and original communities, but traveling to unknown places and people, preaching, healing, caring, as he did. Listening to his directions, they fished for other human beings, to deliver them from darkness and despair, and give them the gifts of faith, hope, love, and abiding joy.
"Jesus wins the trust of his beloved by leading them into deeper waters, delivering improbable results that boggle the mind but stir the soul. Trust where Jesus asks you to go, into the depth of your heart and abilities." ("Take Five for Faith," Sept. 5, 2019).
Fear of the deep waters of our hearts most often attempts to paralyze us when there is something good and life-giving in us that our Enemy (Satan) does not want us to "surface." Paralyzing fear of doing something is often a spiritual sign that we should ask for God's help, and then DO IT! What we can't do - or think we can't do - God WILL do, in us, through us, for us. Our weakness, our limitations, are either revealed to be a false illusion, or through Jesus' gift to us of the Holy Spirit we are given new talents to meet our new needs and desires. When we are sailing and diving into the deep waters of our hearts, Jesus' constant words to us are: "Behold I am doing something new: something new in you to bring something new, through you, into other human beings' lives - their bodies, minds, hearts, and souls."
Think of Jesus' getting into your boat as the sign of God's supreme mercy given to you. God, in His mercy, forgives you, heals you, feeds you with His own life-giving grace (and, for Catholics, feeds us in the Eucharist,) leads you and inspirits you into becoming all that you can become.
Once Jesus gets into our boat, he steers us into the deep waters of doing ministry, which is giving God's mercy to others through helping them in ways that imitate Jesus' own life. Jesus always cared for the whole person: body, mind, heart, and soul. If we want an overall view of that ministry, an examination of conscience, meditate on the corporal and spiritual works of ministry. First, the corporal works, which focus on people's bodily needs. The standard list is given by Jesus in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, in the famous sermon on the Last Judgment. They are also mentioned in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 13. The seventh work of mercy comes from the Book of Tobit and from the mitzvah of burial.
"Body and soul both matter to God who chose to take on human form. In fact, Jesus’ ministry was dominated by healing and feeding. He even sometimes broke the religious rules of his day to tend to the physical needs of others. In doing so, he modeled how we should take care of our neighbors and gave us a new rulebook: The corporal works of mercy. So feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned, bury the dead, and give to the poor. Taking care of the body does a soul good." (from "Take Five for Faith, " Sept. 7.)
Just as the corporal works of mercy are directed towards relieving corporeal suffering, the aim of the spiritual works of mercy is to relieve spiritual suffering. The third comes from Ezekiel 33, verse 19, the fifth comes from the mitzvah of forgiving others before receiving forgiveness from God,(20) and the seventh comes from Maccabees 2. These works include: To instruct the ignorant, To counsel the doubtful, To admonish the sinners, To bear patiently those who wrong us, To forgive offenses, To comfort the afflicted, and To pray for the living and the dead.
The spiritual works of mercy are the divine call to journey with others, to accompany them in times of trial. To help others, we need to learn more about our faith so we can share that faith with others when they are hungry to know more themselves. We can pray for the gift of Counsel, so that when others are facing doubts, we can either clear up any of their misunderstandings of faith issues, or else explain that doubting is part of the normal cycle of faith, and that we've faced doubts ourselves. When they are grieving, and feel lost and alone, we can be with them, sharing our own experiences of grieving, so they don't feel as if "they are going crazy."
In our daily relationships, our faith can help us both understand why we routinely offend others, as well as give us the strength to forgive others, and humbly accept being forgiven. A regular nightly Examination of Conscience in which we think about the day of experiences we've just lived through, and a regular celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation keep us "in touch" with our own individual "triggers" that lead to us sinfully hurting others. What triggers our own insecurities and pride that lead to our arguments, our alienation from others? "To admonish the sinner" can simply refer to those difficult conversations in which we honestly, calmly, and lovingly explain to someone why we think that he or she is doing something wrong or dangerous - and yet accept that people make their own choices.
Pope Francis has added on another work of mercy: care for creation, care for our common home. In Genesis, God gave human beings the knowledge that all life forms, not just human beings, are interconnected, dependent on each other for life and thriving. Human beings have a responsibility for the entire planet. The cosmic Body of Christ includes not just human beings, but the whole of creation, the Universe, which Christ holds together in Himself.
When Jesus leads us into the depths of our hearts, we learn more and more that Love is eternal and inexhaustible. We never run out of it, and there is always more in us to give. We live, not out of a belief in scarcity, but a belief in plenty. It's living out of a vision that a community, a country, and a world always has the resources to care for all its people, and the earth and its creatures - not either/or, but both/and.
The works of mercy unerringly call us into the works of justice: "Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." (Proverbs 31:9) And, since Jesus always worked one-on-one with individuals, the depths of our hearts will always lead us to desire to get to know people whom we never dreamed we would ever meet, or listen to.
"Poor and afflicted and oppressed people have faces, and we are required to look squarely into them. We can't love what we won't experience." (Nancy Mairs)
As Bishop Robert Barron says: "The single most important decision that you will ever make is this: Will you cooperate with Jesus once he decides to get into your boat?"
Are you willing to travel into the depths of your heart's waters to discover the depths of God's Mercy and the immense wideness of your own spiritual gifts? Are you willing to dive into the corporal and spiritual works of mercy to become an instrument of God's providential mercy for others, their bodies, minds, hearts, and souls? Are you willing to be called into the works of justice for new people, new faces, new lives - the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed? The oppressed and afflicted earth itself?
Remember, Love never fails. God is Love Itself, the One Who will lead you into the unending joy of truly knowing yourself and truly knowing Him. Do not ever be afraid, Jesus tells you. ""Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching human beings." (Luke 5: 1-11.) Catching them and holding them safe and tight with God's own life-giving, light-giving love so they will not be lost in darkness.