Daily Gospel Reflection for September 6, 2018

Today's Gospel: Luke 5:1-11 Recently, I was tidying up my office after a long day of work when my wife Gail – at the Pastoral Centre for a workshop – offered to help me. At first I resisted. I had a rough idea of what needed to go where and I didn’t want her messing with my master plan. That lasted all of five minutes, as Gail took over and had my whole office organized in 15 minutes, likely saving me an hour or two. Ultimately, my initial resistance seemed futile. I wonder if Simon felt the same way after his encounter with Jesus in today’s Gospel. When Jesus first asked Simon to put out a short distance from shore, I can just picture Simon thinking to himself, “Are you kidding me?” Soon afterwards, Jesus implored Simon to go even further out and lower the fishing nets. As in, the nets he was trying to clean. Simon told Jesus that he hadn’t caught anything all night. But he caught himself right away and obeyed Jesus, lowering the nets into the water. And the nets began to overflow with fish. Simon needed to have faith. And no fear. Our Ministries and Outreach Office uses this passage as its ministry focus. When we pray together, we open our hearts to God and give thanks for the blessing of His presence in our lives and the blessings He extends on us as we “put out into the deep”. Like Simon, we acknowledge our sinfulness and our weakness. And also like Simon, we cast aside all fear as we do our best to fulfil our mission statement: to lead people to deep and lasting encounters with Jesus Christ. We look forward to catching more men and women...in the name of Jesus Christ.

Ponder:

In what areas of your life do you need to trust God more and fear less?

Pray:

Lord, how comforting it is to know that in simply following You my fear will be diminished. Help me to go from my plan to Your plan, becoming a fisher of men and women, for salvation of souls and the Father's glory. Amen.

Copyright 2018 Clayton Imoo Clay lives in beautiful Vancouver, BC with his wife and three children. He is an Associate Director in the Ministries and Outreach Office of the Archdiocese of Vancouver. He has spoken at numerous conferences and rallies locally, nationally, and internationally. He writes about family, faith, and the Vancouver Canucks at www.claytonimoo.com. Receive CatholicMom.com newsletters in your inbox, including the Daily Gospel Reflection each morning! * indicates required