Sep 14 Mon
Do I allow Jesus to enter my boat?
St Luke tells us in the Gospel: “While the people pressed upon Jesus to hear the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And He saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, He asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the people from the boat."
“He got into Peter's boat. Jesus began by asking him for that old boat and ended up asking for all his energies, his whole life! Hasn't the same happened to you?"
Christ wants to enter our boat, as He entered Peter's, to make us fishers of men.
How naturally Jesus gets into our own boat! To "complicate" our lives, some people might say. He got into your soul and mine, to complicate our lives gently and lovingly, wonderfully ...
“Your boat has no value unless it's no longer yours, unless you give it to Christ. With your boat you're headed for shipwreck. Leave it all, everything: your personal plans, your silly imaginings, your human ambitions that don't lead you to Christ, your pride, those worldly aspirations... That is your boat which is going to sink unless you give it to Christ. And so, if we give our boat to God, if Jesus feels He's the boat's captain..."
“Sometimes it seems that He's absent, that He's not looking after us in the boat... But then Jesus comes walking over the waves, through the storm, and He gets into our boat, which is His, and immediately the wind dies down. If we give ourselves, He gives Himself to us. But we must give ourselves, and do so entirely ... Let us truly give ourselves, let us tell Jesus, with deeds, that our boat belongs to Him."
“We have climbed into Peter's boat along with Christ, into this boat of the Church, which seems so fragile and rickety but which no storm can ever sink."
I came because I wanted to. I love you, Lord, because I wish to love you. I could have given this poor heart to some human being... but no! I place it whole, young, vibrant, noble and clean, at your feet, because I want to!
“Together with your heart, you also gave Jesus your freedom; now your own ambitions have become very secondary. You can move freely within the boat, with the freedom of the children of God, who are in the Truth, fulfilling the divine Will. But never forget that you must remain always within the limits of the boat. And this is because you wanted to. I repeat what I told you yesterday or the day before: if you leave the boat, you will be submerged by the waves, you will die, you will perish, drowned in the ocean, and you will cease to be with Christ, losing that companionship you voluntarily embraced when He offered it to you."
If we ever feel like sinking, it is because, like Peter, we have concentrated our whole attention on the winds of public opinion, on the currents of indifference, on the military, economic, and political opposition from this quarter or from that. We shall be sinking for the same reason that Peter sank: We had taken our eyes off the Master.