Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 8 of Season 5 for the fifth Sunday in ordinary time: February 6, 2022. Our Gospel reading is from Luke,  Chapter 5, verses 1-11

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.

He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command, I will lower the nets.”

When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish

and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them.  They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him

and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. 

Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.

The Gospel of the Lord

“In Confidence, We Go” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut

All of us are here today because we have some kind of relationship with God. What that relationship looks like, as with any relationship in our lives, is dependent upon what we put into it. How much we desire it how we cultivate it. So our relationship with God is going to be greatly determined by how earnestly we pursue that presence of God, how well we pray, how we think and process.

And so the depth and the kind of faith we have as people is going to be linked to that relationship with God and what it looks like for us. 

Now, it's important to understand what faith looks like for us. As we journey through life, we're going to look to that faith to help us figure stuff out, to get us through things. And so if we're going through a tough time in life, or a friend of ours is going through a tough time in life, where things just aren't coming together the way we want them to, we're going to look to God to intervene. Maybe change things up, fix it. And so we look to God in faith. And if God does what we want God to do or need God to do, it's okay.  But if God doesn't intervene in the way we want God to intervene, we walk away. 

You see, because we haven't had that depth of relationship that sees faith as anything more than something to help me, something to get me out of a jam.

When we think of the word faith, and we think of the challenges of our life, has your faith ever been challenged? Has your faith ever been challenged? There's many times when we're going through stuff when we find ourselves saying to god, why me? What did I do? I'm a good person. They don't deserve all of this. Why me? And we almost feel that God has cheated us because we're being forced to carry this cross or travel down this path that we didn't choose and don't want to go. Yes, life can challenge our faith and call us to question who am I? Who is God?

Maybe some of you here today are at a point where your faith is being challenged right now. You're wondering why things are happening the way they are? Where God might be in all that's going on? Where the end is going to be, and whether it will all be okay. We wonder and we question and we doubt. 

I love the story in today's gospel about St. Peter. Simon Peter had a great relationship with Jesus, we know that. There was no question that he loved them. They were good friends.

I could only imagine what the greater dialogue must've been as this whole scene was playing out. We only get a little picture of it, but I can imagine Simon Peter, like each one of us, being human after putting his boat in the water and trying to catch fish all day and coming up with nothing, finds himself a bit exhausted and wondering what's the point? So when Jesus says to him, okay, I know you're tired, but you're going to go out even further and put your net into the water again, that Simon, Peter might've looked at him and said, "Seriously? We've been trying to do that all day and we caught nothing. What makes you think we're going to get anything now? He looks at Jesus and he says, okay, I trust you. I'll listen to you, but I don't really want to do it.

And so he goes, puts his net into the water, and catches more fish than they know what they could do with. And he comes back and he looks at Jesus and he says, "Depart from me. I'm a sinful man." 

He did what Jesus wanted him to do, but he was unhappy with the condition of his heart. He knew that, although he listened to Jesus, he wasn't invested in the plan. He didn't completely trust. And he realized that his faith faltered, his hope was diminished, and his love was really not as strong as he may have thought. And maybe just for a moment in that whole interchange, Simon Peter found himself without joy and knew that something was really wrong.

Jean Pierre de Caussade has a wonderful definition of the life of faith, and it's worth our attention. He tells us that the life of faith is nothing less then the continued pursuit of God through all that disfigures him, through all that hides him, through all that destroys him, and through all that annihilates him.

There are many things that happen in our life that we allow to cancel out God. We think that if something is really going wrong then either there can't be a God, or I don't really understand who this God is. And it causes us to falter. Jean Pierre (de Caussade) tells us to go to the cross. And there at the foot of the cross is Jesus' mother. We often don't think of this because all of the crucifixes that we have all look polished. They're really nothing like what happened that day. And there Mary was, at the foot of that cross looking at her son. We forget that he was beaten. He was bruised. That his hands and his feet were pierced. That he hung on a cross for hours.

Imagine what he looked like. She saw him just hours before, and what she was looking at now did not look like her son. He was disfigured. He was hidden. He was destroyed. He was annihilated. She didn't know how the story was going to end. She knew what she saw. And there she knelt  and there she stayed with her faith certain. 

She didn't fall victim to her pain. She didn't fall victim to her feelings. She allowed none of it to allow her to waiver. She stayed. You see, that's what got St. Peter so upset. He allowed his feelings, him being tired, to supersede his relationship with God, and that's what we do is we're encountering problems in our life. We allow our feelings to have more power than they need to, and we forget to go to the cross. We think that we're going to just going to do this all by ourselves. Then we find our faith wavering, because, in the midst of the suffering, it's not about God fixing our problems. It's not about having God do what we want God to do. In the end, it's about God. 

You see faith isn't about endurance, or just that. Yes, there's an element of endurance in faith. Faith is ultimately about an encounter and it's an encounter with God. Finding God in the now, even if that now is messy and broken, and that's what Mary did. She found God in the now. To find God when we're fishing. To find God when we're searching to find God when we're broken. To find God when we're confused. To find God when we don't know where to turn in the moment of now. 

Now we're so used to the sun shining. It's bright today, beaming. What we don't realize is that the sun never stops shining. We just see different versions of it. Well, the sun of justice, Jesus Christ himself, shines continuously as well, even though there are dark clouds that come into life and veil us from the rays of his love. Even though there are tempests that come up that distract us of who He is, He's always there.

And for people of faith who understand the treasure of that presence, They can praise, they can bless, and they can contemplate those rays, even in the midst of the doubt, the sadness, the disappointment, and the loss.

You know, we've all had the opportunity of going somewhere where there are these big ships and vessels, and these ships are magnificent. If you go to a place like Newport or someplace like that, artists are drawn there because of the scene, and how it just brings about such creativity. And as we walk amidst them, they really are, they're incredible. To think of someone even building one of these things. And as they're tethered there to the dock, you can paint a very serene and calm picture. But we know full well that that ship isn't meant to be tied to that dock. It's meant to be out in the water. Out in the water that is unpredictable. Out in the water that can become torrential. Out in the water that can become uncertain. Out in the water that is subject to the elements. Out in the water that can make it very, very fragile. But yet it cannot be who it is, or what it is unless it goes where it needs to go. And we're like that ship. We like to remain tethered to a dock where everything is fine. Where we have our gadgets and our comforts and the things that make us feel good, at least for now. Yet when life calls us to go out and life becomes challenging, what is it upon which we rely? What do we have? Ourselves? No. Not at all. 

The only thing that can get us through any challenge in life is Jesus Christ. And unless we go to the cross and ask God with all our heart to help us see him now, we will never find what we seek. 

You know, faith is the mother of three very beautiful children. The first is gentleness, the second is confidence, and the third is joy. Gentleness, confidence, and joy.

 If we find ourselves without any of those in our life, then we very sorely lack faith. But yet, with those three gifts, we can venture forth and encounter everything, knowing that there is nothing, nothing that life can bring us that God cannot fix in one way or the other. It may not be the way I want it to be, but in the end all will be well ,because that's what God does: he takes the darkness and makes it light. He takes that which is empty and He fills it to the brim. So then, you and I, as people truly of faith can place ourselves at God's presence and say, use me, bring me where you will, but do with me as you will. Here I am. Send me. And in confidence, we go.

Father Mark Suslenko  is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.