When Jesus told Simon to “put out into the deep,” Simon used all of his this-worldly logic to explain why he couldn’t. After all, Simon argued, the group had just finished working all night and came up not just short but empty-handed. Then, too, why waste more time and energy trying to fish at a time of day when fishing is known to be notoriously poor? Simon was arguing that to “put out into the deep” just didn’t make any sense. So, he reasoned, the request was wrongheaded.
Using “this worldly” logic to judge others, we regard those who have hurt us as irreformable. “Leopards don’t change their spots” and “Zebras don’t change their stripes,” we say. Then we ask: “Why should I give that person another chance?” After all, we protest: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool we twice, shame on me!” This judgment then provides the opportunity for us to dismiss those who have hurt us, to treat them with disdain, and to ignore them because, in our minds, they’re so undeserving of our forgiveness.
But Jesus has commanded us to cast out into the deep: To forgive them, just as God has forgiven each of us. Lest we forget: Not one of us was immaculately conceived and each of us has sinned and there surely are people who believe we’re undeserving of forgiveness.
When it comes to our Catholic faith, reconciling with God is a moral imperative. The question is not what others have (or have not) done but whether and how each of us is actively repairing the damage we’ve caused others by our sins; confessing those sins to express our interior conversion; and, our expressing our authentic contrition so as to encounter God’s merciful and healing love.
“Sleepy” Catholics not only don’t allow morality to inform their decision making but also to remind them of their need to reconcile with God. This is due, in part, because “sleepy” Catholics don’t appreciate what reconciliation is, how important it is for our relationships, and what its three parts—reparation, confession, and contrition—involve.
Casting out into the deep or reparation involves justice, that is, of admitting the truth. When we conceive of reparation as of punishment for an act rather than an admission of the truth, we conflate justice and vengeance, thinking God acts in the same way we would when someone offends us: The pathway of punishment. Yet, upon reflection, this perspective only increases violence—characterizing God as violent. In turn, this confusion may actually increase sin because if God is violent with those who offend Him, we reason that we have the right do the same with those who have offended us. Violence ends when we encounter God’s merciful and healing love.
Casting out into the deep of reparation involves confession, that is, to admit our guilt—to say “Yes, I have sinned.” When we mistakenly think “Well, everybody else does it, so it’s no big matter,” that doesn’t ameliorate our guilt but actually increases feeling guilty. Guilt—defined as “justified self-disapproval”—is a good thing because it stimulates reparation and confession. Feeling “guilty”—defined as “unjustified disapproval”—is a feeling that arises when we realize others have become aware of our sin, provoking embarrassment. Feeling guilty stimulates us to mask the truth, much as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden with those fig leaves as well as when they hid in the bushes. The only way to decrease feeling guilty is not to deny that we’re feeling guilty and to stop seeking refuge in the fact that others have done similarly. No, to decrease feeling guilty requires admitting our guilt and accepting responsibility for our actions by conducting ourselves in a holier and more virtuous ways.
Casting out into the deep requires contrition—heartfelt sorrow—which is the path which leads to God, Who is full of mercy, healing love, and forgiveness. When we admit our guilt and open ourselves to reconciliation, God welcomes us and always offers a new beginning, for example, “in the beginning, God….” Forgiveness doesn’t eliminate or diminish the need for what justice requires nor does it ignore our guilt. Instead, reconciliation presses beyond these human categories by drawing attention to the need for personal conversion as we seek restore our relationship with God and allow God to transform us through His mercy, love, and forgiveness.
Reconciling with God presents a great challenge because even though we’ve all sinned, almost all of us fail to take concerted action against evil by casting out in the deep by striving to rehabilitate, to embark anew upon the path of holiness and virtue, to be authentic people who move on from our guilt, and become merciful ourselves—offering others what God so freely and generously offers each and every one of us. The evidence that we have reconciled with God is measured in moral terms—God’s unconditional mercy and love, that is, as we forgive others as God has forgiven and transformed us through his mercy and love.
God’s justice is effected through reconciliation not judgment and punishment. It’s pathway leads sinners to the Sacrament of Penance where forgiveness doesn’t remain exclusively in the private sphere of a confessional. No, forgiveness extends beyond the confessional into the world of our relationships with others, creating the possibility of ever-increasing harmonious relations of coexistence that’s rooted in our experience of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness for our sins. For this reason, each Sunday just before receiving Holy Communion we pray the “Our Father” and say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Not only does the need for reconciliation fly in the face of this-worldly logic, but it also flies in the face of our culture’s “rugged individualism” because reconciliation requires humility. That is, to do what Jesus asks—to cast out into the deep of humility—not to offer lame excuses about how busy we are, how tired we’ve become, and that the time just isn’t right.
Like reconciliation, casting out into the deep of humility involves recalling there’s no humility without humiliation. Thus, if we’re not able to accept some humiliations in life, we can’t be humble. None other than Jesus taught us this lesson by allowing himself to be insulted and unjustly crucified. The people judged Jesus a sinner—a complete and utter failure of a this-worldly leader—but, in fact, the people were the real sinners—failures who didn’t entrust themselves to God and pass from sin to holiness—evident in the fact they were blind to the truth of Emmanuel. Mocking and cursing Jesus, they conflated justice with vengeance, ascribing their righteousness to God, only increasing the amount of violence in their world.
For this reason, “sleepy” Catholics aren’t holy—they have no experience of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness—because they’ve never cast out into the deep by humbling themselves before God. Sadly, they know nothing of what Isaiah prophesied in today’s first reading:
One of the seraphim touched my mouth with the ember, and said, “See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”
Furthermore, because “sleepy” Catholics have never experienced God removing their wickedness and purging sins, they haven’t “heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’” And, they’ve never said, “Here I am, send me!”
“Sleepy” Catholics cannot be ministers of reconciliation in their marriages, families, neighborhoods, and workplaces because they’ve don’t cast out into the deep by reconciling themselves with God by walking the pathway of humility.
That represents the challenge Scripture presents us this week if we’re going to wake from being “sleepy” Catholics and become “WOKE” Catholics: To pray to God for the grace of humility so that we may better understand that humility cannot be achieved without humiliation.
This is the first step of reconciling with God and will require each of us to conduct a mememto mori upon awaking each day, the one that St. Paul taught the Corinthians. That is, to admit the truth: Because we have sinned, we are the least not even fit to call ourselves Catholics. Having admitted the truth, we need to follow that up by admitting a second truth: That despite our sin and as Scripture taught us on Christmas day, God is with us (in Hebrew, “Emmanuel”) and “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Then, we must steel our power of will to allow God’s grace to be effective during the upcoming day by committing ourselves to toil more energetically than everyone else—not through our efforts but the grace of God at work in us—to be ministers of reconciliation by offering God’s mercy, love, and forgiveness to those who have “trespassed against us.”
This week, being a “WOKE” Catholic means, as Jesus said to Simon, putting out into the deep waters and this week the deep waters of humility, not fearing to learn humility through humiliation. In this way, we also will leave behind everything—especially feeling guilty about our past sins—and follow in Jesus’ footsteps by walking the pathway of reconciliation.
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