I Corinthians 3:18-23, and Luke 5:1-11 — There comes a moment in each person’s life when he or she is confronted by a deep realization: God’s ways are better than my ways. It’s a humbling, sometimes agonizing, sometimes traumatic, sometimes joy-filled, moment. The author Rosemary Haughton suggested that these moments come at the edges and corners of life, where the carpet is turned up a bit and we

can see what lies beyond this world. She described these moments as those which bring deep emotion: the birth of a child, the death of a spouse, the diagnosis of terminal illness, and so on. For some, the discovery is more gradual: a growing uneasiness in life, a deepening restlessness, or as one seminarian said about his surrender to God's call to priesthood, “The lingering feeling that there was something more waiting for me.” Paul had this discovery along the road to Damascus. Peter, along the Sea of Galilee. Where were you, or where will you be, when the Truth finally breaks through? One young man said succinctly but profoundly of his moment, “I tried life my way; it was time to try God’s way.” When God invites us to “set out into the deep” (as with Peter) or to “become a fool, so as to become wise” (as with Paul), He is expressing His love for us, who made us and knows us best. The poet Dante wrote, “In His will is our peace.” How true, how true. There comes a moment for each of us when we recognize that years of insisting that God support what I want out of life have not been the best use of my talents and energies (as Peter said, “We have worked hard all night and have caught nothing.”). When we abandon our goals to the larger and loving will of God, when we trust that God can best direct me in life, we can begin to plumb the depths of what Peter and Paul knew (as Paul wrote, “All belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God.”).

 

September 6, 2012

Msgr. William J. King