Well of Moses: Christ (fragment),
Claus Sluter, 1406

Readings:
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 138:1-5, 7-8 1
1 Corinthians 13:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

Chants

Simon Peter, the fisherman, is the first to be called personally by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel.

His calling resembles Isaiah’s commissioning in the First Reading: Confronted with the holiness of the Lord, both Peter and Isaiah are overwhelmed by a sense of their sinfulness and inadequacy. Yet each experiences the Lord’s forgiveness and is sent to preach the good news of His mercy to the world.

No one is “fit to be called an apostle,” Paul recognizes in today’s Epistle. But by “the grace of God,” even a persecutor of the Church—as Paul once was—can be lifted up for the Lord’s service.

In the Old Testament, humanity was unfit for the divine—no man could stand in God’s presence and live (see Exodus 33:20). But in Jesus, we’re made able to speak with Him face-to-face, taste His Word on our tongue.

Today’s scene from Isaiah is recalled in every Mass. Before reading the Gospel, the priest silently asks God to cleanse his lips that he might worthily proclaim His Word.

God’s Word comes to us as it came to Peter, Paul, Isaiah, and today’s Psalmist—as a personal call to leave everything and follow Him, to surrender our weaknesses in order to be filled with His strength.

Simon put out into deep waters even though, as a professional fisherman, he knew it would be foolhardy to expect to catch anything. In humbling himself before the Lord’s command, he was exalted—his nets filled to overflowing; later, as Paul tells us, he will become the first to see the risen Lord.

Jesus has made us worthy to receive Him in the company of angels in God’s holy Temple. On our knees like Peter, with the humility of David in today’s Psalm, we thank Him with all our hearts and join in the unending hymn that Isaiah heard around God’s altar: “Holy, holy, holy....” (see also Revelation 4:8).

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St. José Maria Escriva de Balaguer
from Friends of God

When Jesus put out to sea with his disciples he wasn't just thinking of that particular fishing expedition. That is why... he said to Peter: "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men". And divine effectiveness will not be lacking in the case of this new kind of fishing, either: the apostles will become the agents of great marvels in spite of their personal failings.

And we, too, if we struggle daily to acquire sanctity in our day to day lives, each according to our own condition in the midst of the world and the exercise of our professions, then I venture to affirm that our Lord will make instruments of us, capable of accomplishing miracles, even the most exceptional ones if needs be. We will give light to the blind.

Which of us could not tell of a thousand examples of the way in which someone blind, almost from their birth, has regained their sight and received the light of Christ in all its splendor? Someone else was deaf and another dumb, unable to understand or articulate a single word as children of God...: now they understand and express themselves like adults...

"In the name of Jesus" the apostles give strength back to a sick man who was incapable of all useful action... «In the name of the Lord, stand up and walk!" (Acts 3,6). Another, a dead man who already had a stench, heard God's voice as at the time of the miracle of the widow of Naim's son: "Young man, I tell you, arise!" (Lk 7,14; Acts 9,40; cf. Jn 11).

We will work miracles like Christ, miracles like the first apostles. Perhaps these wonders have happened in you, in me: perhaps we were blind or deaf or sick or smelt of death when the Word of God snatched us from our prostration. If we love Christ, if we follow him definitively, if he alone is the one we seek and not our own selves, then in his name we will be able to give without cost what we have received without cost.