Please read the passage before the homily.
I have heard that the best fishing on the Sea of Galilee is during the night. I have also heard that speaking from a boat offshore can act like a microphone to broadcast the sound. These ordinary things had a great effect on Simon Peter and his comrades.
This story belongs to stories of how people have met other people. How did you spouses first meet; what drew you into the occupation you have? What force drew you to study a particular field in school?
Fish cannot live on land, and we cannot live long in water. Simon caught fish and let them die so that he could sell them for food. Simon would become a fisher of people and give them a new way of living through the waters of baptism. The opposite of similarities between fishing for fish and fishing for people expresses Simon’s life’s work.
Sometimes God uses extreme measures to get our attention, such as when God appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus. Most of the time, however, I think that God uses more subtle and ordinary means to get our attention.
I cannot remember how I first wanted to become an ordained priest, but I remember that always wanting to be one. Another person told me that he was in the bathroom when he got the message. A sister of mine met her future husband at another sister’s wedding: maid of honor and best man became fiancés. Living in family, conversing with friends, walking in the snow, hearing a remark by another have been ways in which God has delivered the message to us.
The whole world provides God opportunities to call us into service. Apparently chance encounters have brought couples together. An encounter with Jesus and fish on a boat brought Simon Peter and his co-workers into Jesus’ story. Who or what has led you to where you are in the world today?
The moral of the story is to keep an eye open because we do not know when, where, or how we are going to meet Jesus who will call us into the work he wants us to do.