+(Intro) Let us continue to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all those gathered for the General Chapter as we celebrate this Eucharist. To prepare ourselves let us remember our sins and failings confident in God’s loving mercy.
(After the gospel) Jesus uses all the circumstances of our everyday lives to manifest his presence. We see this clearly when he tells Peter to put out into deep water and lower the nets. We too, feel at times that we have worked the whole night and caught nothing.
The reason prayer is so important in the life of a monk or in the life of every Christian, is that it allows us to hear Jesus telling each of us when to lower our nets, when to be attentive to that call of faith into whatever Jesus may ask of us. On our own we may work the whole night and catch nothing but when we hear that still small voice, everything changes. What was meaningless can suddenly become so full of meaning that it not only fills our lives but the lives of all those around us.
To make such a catch empowers us to leave everything superficial and to discover meaning for the whole of our lives. So let us be ever more attentive this day to the call of God and to lower our nets.
Col 1:9-14; Luke 5:1-11