THURSDAY OF WEEK 22 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Follow me, says the Lord,
and I will make you into fishers of men. MT 4:19

COLOSSIANS 1:9-14

My Soul's Beloved, 

Our world, O Lord, can truly be heaven on earth if we lived according to Your Word. The peace that You came to give us would be patently visible, for it would be Your peace, the peace of the Most High, the peace that makes it possible for us that we are all sisters and brothers, for we have the same Father, the Creator of heaven and earth and of all that is visible and invisible. It is You, O Lord, our Brother, who, having grafted us into Your Body as its members, enables us to have a share in all that is Yours as co-heirs with You. We are children of God, and as His children, we are called to live according to His commands. This is the only way in which we can live in harmony with God, with one another, and with the world. 

Beloved, You have made it possible for us to obey Your commands through the power and working of the Holy Spirit who abides in us and is given to us at our Baptism. Grace upon grace floods our souls when we frequent the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist. You have not left us orphans and widows, but we have the power of God at work in us. Yet, O Lord, our world is entrenched in lawlessness, evil, depravity, and sin. However, there is a faithful remnant; there is always a faithful remnant who stand day and night before God and plead for the salvation of the world, and they are heard. We belong to You, O Lord, and for the sake of Your sorrowful passion, God will have mercy on us and save and heal our troubled world.

Ever since the day we heard about you, we have never failed to pray for you, and what we ask God is that through perfect wisdom and spiritual understanding you should reach the fullest knowledge of his will. So you will be able to lead the kind of life which the Lord expects of you, a life acceptable to him in all its aspects; showing the results in all the good actions you do and increasing your knowledge of God. You will have in you the strength, based on his own glorious power, never to give in, but to bear anything joyfully, thanking the Father who has made it possible for you to join the saints and with them to inherit the light.
Because that is what he has done: he has taken us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he loves, and in him, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins.

PSALM 97(98):2-6

The Lord has made known his salvation.

The Lord has made known his salvation;
has shown his justice to the nations.
He has remembered his truth and love
for the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth,
ring out your joy.

Sing psalms to the Lord with the harp
with the sound of music.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
acclaim the King, the Lord.

The Lord has made known his salvation.

LUKE 5:1-11

My Soul's Beloved, 

Today, the Church invites us to ponder the first encounter between You and Simon Peter. He and his partners, James and John, have spent a long, arduous, fruitless night fishing and have caught nothing. Being fishermen, they would surely have experienced this before, toiling the whole night cold and sleepless with nothing to show for it. They would surely have been downcast as they were busily washing their nets before calling it a day and going home. A whole night's work with nothing to show for it. They were in their boats, close to the shore, and would have heard Your words to the crowd. What did they make of what they heard? Did it have any effect on them? What were Simon Peter's thoughts when You got into his boat and spoke to him, saying, ‘Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.’ 

We, too, have had such experiences; we are quite convinced we know everything about a situation, and then someone seemingly quite ignorant makes a suggestion that seems pointless and clueless, and our immediate reaction is to dismiss it out of hand. Simon reacted negatively but said respectfully, ‘Master, we worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.’ He heard the authority in Your voice and responded to it by obeying, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

It was a miracle of such magnitude that Simon and his companions were jaw-droppingly amazed. Never was such a thing ever heard of, far less experienced by anyone, but such is the power of obedience to God's word. 'And when they had done this, they netted such a huge number of fish that their nets began to tear, so they signalled to their companions in the other boat to come and help them; when these came, they filled the two boats to sinking point.' Simon, an experienced fisherman, knew that they were in the presence of someone extraordinary, and what they had witnessed was a miracle. He fell on his knees before You, the Lord of heaven and earth, Master of the sea and skies, and said, ‘Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.’ You said to him in a voice that I am certain was full of loving tenderness, as You called him to a mission and would ultimately establish him as Your Vicar on earth, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on it is men you will catch.’ The fruit of their encounter with You is that they brought their boats back to land, left everything, and followed You.

As long as we stay close to You, listen to Your word, and live it as we follow You, the turbulent waters of evil cannot overwhelm or touch us. We are protected by its mighty power and the grace that is ours when we abide by it.