5th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

February 10, 2013

Is 6:1-2, 3-8; 1Cor 15:1-11; Lk 5:1-11

The voice of grace

“Put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

In the next few days we will begin the Lenten season with Ash Wednesday. We begin that season of the
year when we focus on God’s passionate love for us in Jesus Christ suffering and dying on the Cross for
us sinners. We focus on responding to this love by amending our lives and receiving forgiveness.
However, many of us find out that over the years, we pretty much deal with the same sins in our lives.
After so many Lenten seasons and after many resolutions not to commit such sins again, we continue to
fall short of our goals. Maybe some of us have completely given up on striving to be better but have
accepted to just live with these sins because of our past failures to amend our lives. The temptation to
give up is one that we face after so many failed attempts to amend our lives. But should we succumb to
this temptation to give up striving to grow in godliness in response to Christ’s love for us?

In the truly sober and honest book, “Every young man’s battle,” the co-author, Fred Stoeker, narrated
his constant struggle from his teenage years with the sexual sins of pornography, masturbation and
premarital sex. He tried everything that he could to stop but was not successful. He prayed, read the
bible, went to church, answered the altar call in his church, got some Christian friends for accountability,
gave his life to Christ and believed that Christ was nailed to the cross because of our sins; but he still
could not live a chaste life no matter how hard he tried. While working late and alone one evening as an
investment adviser in San Francisco and taking a break to sit silently and gaze out into the Californian
sunset, he had an experience of God revealing to him what he had become through his sins and how
badly he was in need of a savior. Without saying a single prayer, he found himself crying the most
sincere tears of sorrow and contrition that he had ever cried in his life.

That evening marked a turning point in the Fred’s life and would be the beginning of his hopeful struggle
over his sexual sins. God broke through to Fred when he least expected Him to, at a place, manner and
time that he did not expect and turned his life around, making him a future faithful husband and
champion to the youth about chastity. I wonder what would have happened to Fred if he had given up
on trying all those years to live a chaste life all his life and failing time after time. After all those painful
failures, he experienced the hope and certainty of victory over his sins in the midst of his hectic work.
How fortunate he was for persevering all those years and never giving up.

In today’s Gospel passage, we find the story of Peter and the disciples encountering the Lord Jesus in a
most unexpected way. They had spent all night fishing and had caught nothing. Fully aware of their
futile and frustrated fishing expedition the night before, Jesus requested that they set out again into the
deep waters and lower their nets for a catch. He called them to try one more time but at His command
this time. Peter replied that though they had caught nothing the night before, “at His (Jesus’) command,
he would lower the nets.” It was a moment of grace for Simon Peter too. He did not only catch a
miraculous amount of fish, but he also realized his own sinfulness, “Lord, depart from me for I am a
sinful man” and the consoling reply of Jesus, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching men.”

Simon Peter, like our friend Fred, did not choose to live in the past. They did not allow themselves to be
discouraged by their past failures. They responded to the voice of grace that calls us at each moment to
let go of the past and embrace the opportunities of the future by trying again and again. Jesus’ words,
“Put out into the deep waters and lower your nets for a catch” is the voice of grace that calls us to begin
anew at each moment and not to give up because of past failures. It is a voice that invites us to accept
our own helplessness and incapacity without divine grace. It is a voice that moves us to the point that
we know we are loved unconditionally even in the face of our sins. It is a voice that unexpected fills our
hearts with so much hope that we are willing to let go of all things and to follow Jesus Christ even as we
struggle with sin in our lives.

St. Paul is another person who listened to the voice of grace. In the letter to the Corinthians read at
today’s liturgy, he said that he was “not fit to be called an apostle because he persecuted the Church of
God.” He encountered the Crucified and Risen Lord at an unexpected moment when he was on his
mission to persecute Christians in Damascus. Because “God’s grace to him has not been ineffective,” he
has become an apostle by divine grace and not by any of his merit. He let go of his own past sins when
he persecuted the Christians and has so embraced the opportunities of the present moment that he has
“toiled harder than all of the apostles.” In the second reading, the prophet Isaiah’s vision reveals the
infinite holiness of God and his own unworthiness as he lamented, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a
man of unclean lips living among people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of
hosts.” But he too does not live in the past but, after being purified of his sins, he grasped the
opportunities of the future by embracing his vocation and saying, “Here I am Lord. Send me.”

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the struggle with sin is a lifelong venture. We must resist the
temptation to give up but persevere no matter how many times we fail. St. Teresa of Avila said that God
does not withhold Himself from the person who perseveres. No matter our past failures in the Christian
life, Jesus’ words to St. Peter are addressed to us at each moment of our lives, “Put out into the deep
and lower your nets for a catch.” It is the voice of divine grace to move beyond the past and embrace
the opportunities of the future.

If we are looking for something to give up this Lenten season, let us give up this attitude of giving up
because of our past failures. We must do this not only during the Lent of 2013 but all the days of our
lives. Jesus did not let Simon Peter off because he acknowledged that he was a sinful man. But rather he
confirmed that from that moment on Peter will be catching men. Likewise Jesus will not cease inviting us
to let go of the past sins and failures and embrace the opportunities of the future with renewed hope.
This very moment of our lives may be our own unexpected moment of victory after so much defeats and
failures. This very moment may be our own moment of grace when we gain mastery over our sins after
so many failed resolutions. The voice of grace rings out loud and clear always. The only question is this:
Are we willing and ready to let of the past failures and embrace the opportunities of the future?