“He is here with us”

Editor’s note: The following homily was given by Very Rev. William L. Novak, V.G., on Sept. 6 in the Saint Francis de Sales Chapel at the Catholic Pastoral Center in Oklahoma City.
 
Luke 5:1-11
 
I have to be honest, over the years I haven’t paid much attention to this passage from Luke’s gospel other than the apostles caught a lot of fish (so much so that their nets were tearing), but only after Jesus instructed them to try again after they worked all night and caught nothing.
 
I will admit that I’ve paid more attention to this passage since Archbishop Coakley arrived in Oklahoma City, since Duc in Altum – "Put out into the deep” – is his episcopal motto.
 
However, lately, upon further study and prayer, I have come to understand this verse as the climax or the “turning point” of the whole passage. By telling Simon Peter to put out into deeper water, Jesus was essentially telling him not only to try again but go farther out into uncharted territory.
 
He was telling him (and the others) to go beyond what was familiar and safe and into a place they had never gone before. And, not only that, dropping nets into deeper water implied more work. It meant they would have to exert more energy and apply more effort than just staying along the shallow shoreline.
 
Uncharted waters? More work? Sound familiar?
 
My brothers and sisters, I think we have found ourselves in a similar situation as the apostles when Jesus met them alongside Lake Gennesaret. After years of planning and evangelizing and re-organizing and renovating and hosting a Beautification Mass for a local martyr priest and generating support for historic building projects (in his honor and to the glory of God) and establishing endowments for future ministry and exceeding goals and pushing ourselves “to go make disciples” – it has been a long night at sea.
 
We disembarked our boats and were washing our nets when recent developments in the Church –
locally, nationally and globally – gave rise to anger and hurt at what some did and what others failed to do. Amid these scandals we also recognize and acknowledge our own weaknesses and our own need for repentance.
 
Over the past few weeks, we have moved from frustration to confusion to fear to hopefulness and then back again. We were all ready to call it a day and pack up our nets, but today Jesus comes before us and says, “Put out into the deep.” Like Simon Peter, our first reaction may be to protest (a little), “we have worked all night,” but there is something within us that still wants to listen to His voice and still longs to respond to His command.
 
Despite our weariness and our skepticism, we trust Him, and we recognize that He is not standing on the shore away from us but has climbed into the boat and is with us. Even as He tells us to “put out into deep” – to go farther into uncharted territory and to work harder than we ever have worked before – he doesn’t send us to do it alone. He is with us … in the boat.
 
The current crisis in the Church is challenging on many levels. First and foremost, it is the sexual abuse of minors and the abuse of power by priests and bishops who by their office were entrusted with the responsibility to protect those they were called to serve.
 
It is about the lack of transparency motivated by a desire to prevent a scandal, which in the end became the scandal. It is about entitlement and pride that places oneself above reproach or correction.
 
It is about the dark forces working against faith in our culture from the outside that are now working against it from the inside. It’s about sin and evil that surround us even in the holiest places we know on earth.
 
It’s about all the work we have done and all the good that continues to be done and the threat that all of it will be overshadowed or undone by acts of pure evil. And, it’s about the damage that has been done and for some will never be undone.
 
But, here we are. In this place together. Instructed by our Lord to “put out into the deep” to go farther and to work harder and to see this moment, this horrible time, as an opportunity…
 

• To be purified as individual disciples and as a Church;

 

• To be renewed in our mission to “Go Make Disciples;”

 

• To recognize the power and the presence of evil, to name it, and to fight against it wherever it is found;

 

• To stop taking our faith for granted and start living it with courage and conviction even amid a crisis (especially in a crisis);

 

• To repent and make amends for our faults and the faults of the Church;

 

• To implement plans and strategies going forward that will prevent this from ever happening again;

 

• To involve the laity even more in the work of the Church at all levels;

 

• To pray without ceasing;

 

• And, to remember that this is where we are, this is where our Lord wants us to be and He is here with us, in the boat, in the deep water, in this Eucharist now and forever.