by Fr. Richard G. Cipolla
"But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying: 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'" (Luke 5:8)
This gospel seems
straightforward. Jesus wants to teach
the crowd from a boat, sees that Simon’s boat is empty, asks him to pull out a
little from the shore and starts speaking to the crowd. When he is done, he tells Simon Peter to
bring the boat into deeper water to get a good catch. Simon explains that they have been trying all
night long with no success. They are tired and discouraged. But Simon does as Jesus tells him and they
not only catch a lot of fish, but there are so many fish the boats almost capsize. The allegorical level so far would also seem
obvious. Peter’s boat is the Church, and
to increase the number of followers of Jesus Christ, the Church cannot stay in
the shallows but has to go out into the deep and trust in the Lord and there
will be a huge increase in the members of Christ’s body that is the
Church.
But the jarring element in
this gospel is Peter’s reaction to the amazing catch of fish. Remember that this is how he earned his
living. And this was the greatest catch
he had ever experienced. Suppose you
were a bond trader and one morning you had more trades than you have ever had
and you made a huge profit in just an hour.
What would your reaction be? Suppose you were a house painter, and one
day you received fifty phone calls asking for your services and everyone
offered you a payment for your services that was far and above what you ordinarily
receive. Suppose you were a real estate
agent, and after months of no sales, in one hour fifty homes that were your
listings all sold and at a greatly inflated price. You get the picture.
And what would your reaction
be to this unbelievable windfall? The
answer is obvious. It would not be Simon
Peter’s reaction: "Depart from me, for I
am a sinful man, O Lord." For most of us
his reaction is a non-sequitur. It does
not make sense to us. He should be
happy, very happy. He should have hugged Jesus with a broad smile on his
face. But no. Get out of my boat, I don’t want you here
because I am a sinful man, O Lord.
Notice the 'O Lord'. What is the
meaning of this reaction?
What happened to Peter at
this moment is first of all his intense awareness of the presence of the divine
in this miraculous catch. For the first
time he sees Jesus as the Lord, as the presence in some way he could not
describe of the divine, of God. Luke
says: For he and all who were with him
were amazed at the catch of fish they had made. Luke, the master of
understatement for effect. Peter
interprets the great catch, the windfall, the unexpected success, not to the
market forces, or to luck, or to personal merit, intellectual or otherwise. Peter immediately knows that what has
happened has nothing to do with him. But
would you and I think in this way? Would
not most of us attribute the windfall at least in part to our own skill, our
own hard work, our own insight into market forces or whatever? We would reinterpret the event and would
re-interpret ourselves in the light of our great success. And this would be very bad, for it is an
offense against reality, especially the reality of ourselves. The Italians say: cose succedono: things happen. But when good things happen, even if we
piously say things like, thanks, Lord, we purr with satisfaction at our own
triumph. This can be seen in that
Calvinistic attitude—whether or not Calvin would have totally approved we do
not know—that worldly success is a sign of God’s favor, which interpretation
greatly influenced Protestant Christianity in this country. Apparently those who fell into this way of
thinking never read the book of Job, which demolishes any such ordinary link.
But with Peter it is deeper
than this, for he has a flash of insight about himself, about who he really is,
a flash that exposes his sinfulness to himself, and he is appalled and
frightened, and recognizes in some way he could never explain that the man in
his boat sees him as he really is and that the two of them cannot be in the
same place, the sinner cannot abide to be in the presence of the holy. Perhaps Peter sees in this flash of insight
where he will be led and the shape of his cross, perhaps he sees his denial of
the man in the boat, all in this flash of a nanosecond. Without this moment of
truth about oneself, never mind Peter, the truth about you and me, without this
moment of insight into who we really are, the boat goes nowhere. And Jesus understands Peter’s reaction, he
understands that Peter has had a moment of truth about the reality of himself
and that it has shaken him. And what is
Jesus’ response: Do not be afraid; from now on you will catch men. No more fishing. No more bad catches, good catches. Nor more
ordinary living. To bring the message
and reality of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the world to the world: there is the new job of Peter and the
others. And to do this they have to give
everything up. They left all and followed him.
What does this mean? What
happened to Peter’s wife? His children,
if he had any? Not gone, surely. But no longer the primary focus of his life. And yet a married man has a solemn obligation
to his family, to be a husband and father.
But even this is transcended in this calling that requires the total
self, heart, body, mind, soul.
But let us back up. The first words. Those are important to Peter and to us. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Those words that St John Paul II said when he
appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s after his election to the papacy: his first words to the crowd: non abbi paura. And Jesus has to say this to Peter and the
other disciples, for he knows what it will demand to be his disciple in the
deepest sense. He knows the opposition of the world all too well, that
opposition that will crucify him. And
yet he says those words in the face of Peter’s crucifixion: do not be afraid. He can say this because he is the Lord of
world who understands the terrible power of the world, the violent opposition
of the world to the truth and therefore to him, and he alone can see beyond
Peter’s denial of him and beyond Peter’s crucifixion to the triumph of the
resurrection that is the beginning of the triumph over sin and death and the
coming of the one who has said and says and will say: "See I make all things new. I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end." Maranatha.
Lord, come quickly.
