Peter Follows Jesus

Homily for Thursday of the Twent-first Week in Ordinary Time

Peter’s knowledge of the man Jesus was limited to having heard him in the synagogue in Capernaum and the subsequent cure of his mother-in-law’s fever. Something obviously intrigued Peter about the preacher from Nazareth. It is important to keep this limited contact to understand the episode that we hear from St. Luke today. The carpenter from Nazareth is giving fishing advice to Peter, a professional fisherman from Capernaum. One would expect that Peter would be somewhat skeptical, and yet he does as Jesus asks him and even addresses him as “Master.”

This moment, this apparent miracle, is but a prelude to an even greater one. Jesus invites Peter to be one of his disciples whom Jesus will teach to be a fisher of people. In a rather surprising response, Peter and his companions leave everything behind to follow Jesus.

Despite his own sense of unworthiness, Simon Peter found the strength to take the first steps along a journey of faith that would ultimately end in martyrdom and then in glory.

Like Peter, when we acknowledge our brokenness before the Lord and embrace with courage the invitation to follow him, we have the opportunity to be generous sharers of the Gospel message. We will do many things in our lives, but none more important than spreading the Gospel through the example of our lives.

This episode is preceded in the first reading from the Letter to the Colossians in which we hear St. Paul offering a prayer for the Colossians while he languishes in prison. He prays that they will be filled with the knowledge of God; he prays that they will walk worthy of the Lord; he prays that through their lives they may bear good fruit; he prays that they will experience endurance and patience in their ministry; and finally, he prays that they will find joy and gratitude for all that God has done for them.

However, St. Paul not only prays for the Colossians, he also prays for us that we, like the men and women of Thessalonica, will be delivered from the power of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his Son. As we celebrate the Eucharist today, the light that is Jesus dispels any darkness in our lives and prepares us for the day when we will enter that kingdom.