Presence of God

O Lord, make me understand that lam nothing, that I can do nothing by myself, and that only in You can I accomplish anything.

Meditation

I. Two ideas dominate the liturgy of today’s Mass : great confidence in God and an acute awareness of human misery and insufficiency. These two ideas are closely connected, for it is the consciousness of our nothingness which leads us to put all our confidence in God, and the greater this confidence becomes in us, the more convinced we are of our nothingness.

The Mass begins with a cry of unshakable hope : The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? (Introit). The Lord is with me in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, the Lord comes to me in Holy Communion. What can separate me from Him? What can make me fear?

Yet I know my weakness; I have ever before my eyes the remembrance of my failures and infidelities. How great, then, is my need to humbly repeat the beautiful prayer of the Gradual : Save us, O Lord, and pardon our sins... Help us, O God, our Savior, for the glory of Your Name. Yes, in spite of the continual help of divine grace, in spite ofso many confessions and communions, I have to acknowledge new failures every day; daily, I must begin anew. The struggle is arduous and painful, but in today’s Epistle (Rom 8, 18-23), St. Paul reminds us that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us. This thought is one of consolation, hope and confidence; it does not, however, prevent us from longing for freedom and complete redemption. This is what the Apostle experienced when he said : We also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body in Christ Jesus. The more we suffer because of our wretchedness, the more we should run to Jesus, with full confidence in the power ofHis Redemption.

II. Today’s Gospel (Lc. 5, 1-11) is a practical demonstration of the words of Jesus : Without Me, you can do nothing (Jo. 15, 5). Simon and his companions had been fishing all night and had caught nothing; that is all they had been able to do by themselves. If we have had some little experience in the spiritual life, we will recognize that this is often our situation too. How many efforts we have made to rid ourself of this or that attachment, to forget injuries, to adapt ourself to our neighbor’s way of doing things, to subject our will to another’s! And yet, after all these attempts, we find our hands empty, like Peter’s nets. Let us not be discouraged; if we can humbly acknowledge our failure instead of feeling annoyance because of it, the failure itself will turn into victory. So it happened to Peter after he had admitted publicly that he had taken nothing. St. Therese of the Child Jesus comments : Had the Apostle caught some small fish, perhaps our divine Master would not have worked a miracle; but he had caught nothing, and so through the power and goodness of God his nets were soon filled with great fishes. Such is Our Lord’s way. He gives as God, with divine generosity, but He insists on humility ofheart (L).

In spite of our good will to advance in virtue, Our Lord will not permit us to have any success until He sees that we are thoroughly convinced of our own weakness and inability; to give us this conviction, He lets us, as He let Peter, work all night without catching anything. But afterwards, as He sees our growing awareness of our poverty and our willingness to admit it openly, He will come to our aid. We must, then, have great faith in Him, never allowing ourselves to give up through lack of success. Every day, relying on His word, we must begin anew. If we have learned not to trust in our own strength, we must also learn to have complete confidence in the divine aid. If we have caught nothing until now, perhaps it is our lack of unshakable confidence that is the cause, and this deficiency, besides being displeasing to Jesus, paralyzes our spiritual life. Then let us repeat with Peter in a similar cry of confidence : in verbo tuo laxabo rete, Lord, at Thy word, I will let down the net. And let us repeat it every day, every moment, without ever growing weary.

Colloquy

O Lord, You are my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? You are the protector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?... If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident. One thing do I ask of You, O Lord, that I may dwell in Your house all the days of my life... Then, in the day of evils, You will protect me in the secret place of Your tabernacle, You will exalt me upon a rock....

Hear, O Lord, my voice with which I have cried to You : have mercy on me and hear me... Turn not away Your face from me; decline not in Your wrath from Your servant; be my helper, forsake me not; do not despise me, O God my Savior. Although my father and my mother should abandon me, I am sure that You will never abandon me. ... O my soul, expect the Lord, do manfully, and let your heart take courage, and wait for Him (Ps. 26).

O Lord, You have done great things in me, and the greatest of all is that you have shown me my littleness, and how ofmyself I am incapable of anything good.

Lord, You see how often I fail, but I am never astonished at it. . . I enter into myself and say : ‘ Alas, I am once more at the first step as before! ’ But I say this in great peace without sadness, because I know that You know perfectly how fragile is our nature and You are always ready to help us. What, then, shall I fear? As soon as You see me fully convinced of my nothingness, You stretch out Your hand to me; but if I should try to do something great, even under the pretext of zeal, You desert me. So all I have to do is to humble myself, to bear with meekness my imperfections. Herein lies, for me, true holiness (T.C.J. St, 9 - NV - C).