What is the deep water of your spiritual life?

From the Gospel, Jesus said to Simon Peter to “put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”  Simon was reluctant to start the process of fishing again because the fish just weren’t biting since they had caught nothing all night.  Peter was a professional fisherman,  and yet he did what the Lord asked him to do.   From the Gospel account, we know that when the nets went back into the water, the catch of fish was almost immediate.  The nets were straining from the number of fish.

Jesus’ presence has created abundance out of scarcity just as Jesus did at the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee when he changed the water into wine.

As we pray over this Gospel account, I invite you to hear the call of Jesus to put out into the deep water -- the area beyond your comfort zone, where you can’t touch the bottom, where you have to take the risk of trusting more fully in the Lord’s grace for you, where you have to give up control of the situation and then to experience the abundance of God’s grace in extravagant ways.

What is the deep water in your spiritual life in which the Lord is calling you with the absolute confidence that His grace is sufficient for you?

Deep water can be the challenge of forgiving someone who has hurt you.  Who is the person in your life you have a hard time sharing the forgiveness that God so readily forgives you?

To look at the other side of the coin, deep water can be our need to ask for forgiveness of someone we have hurt.  It is very spiritual to say I am sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness.

We are here at Mass this moment.  We do this faithfully each week.  This is a beautiful form of prayer in our spiritual life.  But the Lord is a restless God and asks to take the next step in the spiritual life in going out into the deep water.  We are missioned to be prayerful each and every day.

The deep water in our prayer life could be reading the Scriptures each day and reflecting on how the Scriptures speak to our daily lives, or to take a few minutes to live with an attitude of gratitude giving thanks for the blessings of the day, or to spend time prayer in Eucharistic adoration on a regular basis.  We as a parish make a commitment to Eucharistic Adoration each day.  Maybe you are being called into the deep water of prayer in Eucharistic Adoration.  The psalmist simply tells us:  “Be still and know that I am God.”

What is the deep water of the spirituality of your sexual life?  While many of us admire the beauty of God’s creation in enjoying the presence of a person of the other sex, this can be wholly spiritual.  But it quite another thing to look at pornography in which people are being exploited for sexual pleasure.  We are to have a profound respect for the beauty and the dignity of one and all.

What is the deep water in your desire to provide for your financial security and the financial security of your family?  The deep water is the capacity to share that which you have previously thought to be

 impossible.  We are blessed financially and we know the words of the Lord that to whom much is given, much is required.  Most of us are capable of going into the deeper water of sharing a bit more that we are used to.

What is the deep water in the spirituality of your family life?  Without doubt, you love your family and would do almost anything for them.  But what about family prayer time?  Is prayer a foreign language in your family life?  It is not enough to have a strong personal life.  In what ways do you pray together as a family?  Do you pray together before meals, do you ever pray the rosary as a family, will you come together as a family to the Stations of the Cross during Lent?  Do you pray with your children before bed at night?

Pope Francis and Jesus himself has called us to be among the poor in ways you share your love and talents with those who are in need.  What we do the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to the Lord himself.

As Americans as we are surrounded by violence, prejudice, hatred, and terrorist threats, how do we do our part in developing a culture of love in which we seek to serve and care for all of God’s people?

While I have suggested multiple of going out into the deep water, I recommend that you choose one area of going out beyond your comfort zone and respond to the call of God to go into the deep water.  I assure you, insofar as you and I can trust more fully in God’s loving care for us, we will experience an abundance of God’s grace in the same way that Peter did in the Gospel account.

The conversion we seek is to respond God’s call to go out into the deep and lower our nets not just for a catch of fish but to be fishers of men, fishers of men,   in all the ways we are called to serve and help one another.  In the words of St John of the Cross:  “In the evening, we are going to be judged by love alone.”