Gospel Delights!

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Col 1:9-14; Lk 5: 1-11

Peter’s call narrative has interesting layers to it.

1.Why would Simon be the first disciple to receive Jesus’ invitation? The first disciple also became the first leader of the Church.  

2. Intending to preach to a larger audience, Jesus gets into Simon’s boat. Was the choice of Simon’s boat accidental or deliberate? It looks as if the choice to appoint Simon as the leader of the Church had its beginnings here. A leader without discipline for obedience will be a disaster. In Simon, Jesus finds a leader who obeys. In today’s gospel, at Jesus’ request, Simon ‘put out the boat a short distance from the shore.’ In the second instance, when Jesus asks Simon to ‘put out into the deep,’ Simon takes the order. We should note that he obeyed Jesus even before becoming his disciple formally. Simon’s readiness to obey Jesus could be the reason for his elevation to leadership.  

3. Simon was a fisherman. When he accepted the call of Jesus, he did not change his profession. He just changed the nets so that from here on, he will be catching people instead of fish. 

4. For Simon, the miracle he witnessed while fishing seems overwhelming. Like others, he had no time to be astonished. Instead, the miracle triggers a self-examination in him. He surrenders to Jesus. In this sense, Simon is a forerunner of humbler minds who, when great things befall, begin to wonder whether they are worthy enough of the honor they have been made recipients of. Finding himself unworthy and driven to contrition in the face of Jesus’ holiness, he wants Jesus ‘to depart from him.’ The scene is so evocative that we can see for ourselves who Simon is and what he becomes as Peter when he starts following Jesus.  

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar