Thursday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Colossians 1:9-14  +  Luke 5:1-11

“But if you say so, I will….”

In spite of Peter’s knowledge and experience in fishing, and in spite of his having been up all night long, Peter and his fishing partners had caught absolutely nothing.  Sometimes in what we do, also, we try our best, even at things we’ve done before and know a lot about, but things don’t work out for us.  That’s a natural part of life in this fallen world.

But in today’s Gospel passage, we hear about Jesus coming along.  Jesus was a carpenter, not a fisherman.  Jesus tells Peter to put out the fishing boat into deep water (not the best place to catch fish), and after the sun had risen (not the best time).  Peter starts out with a protest against Jesus’ idea, but then has second thoughts, and replies to Jesus, “But if you say so, I will….  I will lower the nets.”

Remember that God’s ways are not our ways.  Sometimes, when we pray, we end up telling God what He should be doing.  And when we hear God talking to us, we think His ideas are bad ideas.  When Jesus asks us to do something for Him, we should listen.  And through the grace that we receive in Holy Communion, we should speak as Peter speaks, and say to Jesus, “But if you say so, I will….”