DUC in altum (Put out into the deep) (Lk 5,4), a famous line in the gospel that
gives us a sharp lesson on trust in God. It’s worth engraving it on our mind
and making it a guiding principle especially when we find ourselves in some
kind of a dead-end in any aspect of our life, more particularly in the
spiritual and apostolic parts.
As the gospel narrates, after preaching to a crowd, Christ told Peter to go to
the deep and to lower the nets for a catch. Peter, who acted as head of the
apostles, immediately said, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But
at your word I will let down the nets.”
And soon a miracle happened. The men caught such a huge amount of fish that
they had to call their partners in another boat to help them haul the catch in.
Peter was overwhelmed by what he saw. He could not help but say, “Depart from
me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
The story is very moving indeed, and the good news is that it can happen to any
of us as long as we have faith and trust in God. It has been actually happening
in many instances, though most of them go unreported.
We need to learn to trust God, and in his word and in his ways, no matter how
they seem unreasonable, impractical or impossible. For this, we have to go
beyond our own understanding and estimation of things, and open our mind and
heart to the light of our faith and love for God and for others.
While it’s true that we have to use all our human faculties in dealing with our
earthly affairs and concerns, that is, our intelligence and will, our sciences
and arts, our common sense and cultural and social wisdom, we should not forget
that all these would have no real value unless they are engaged with our faith
in God.
God knows everything. He is omnipotent. He actually intervenes in our lives in
the most intimate way since he is the one who ultimately supports our existence
and who governs it wisely with his providence.
The best news is that he is all too eager to share his power and wisdom with
us, since we are his image and likeness, and as his children, we are expected
to share his very own life and to act in his name here in this life.
We need to adjust the way we think to accommodate this wonderful truth of faith
about ourselves in relation to God and to others. Our problem is that we tend
to be restrictive in our view of things, omitting the inputs of faith and thus
opening ourselves to have a very narrow and shallow view of things, prone to
uncertainties, doubts and fears.
Even those who already have a vibrant spiritual life may find themselves still
in need of growing in their faith and trust in God. That’s because we tend to
get stuck at a certain level, the one that we usually refer to as our comfort
zone. Yes, even in our spiritual life, this thing can afflict us and we should
try to be most wary about it.
What usually happens is that we just allow ourselves to be dictated by our
feelings, our passions, or by the trends and fashions around us, or by some
systematized ideologies or philosophies, but not by faith and trust in God.
Of course, these things can give some instant results. They can give some
immediate practical advantages, but they are notoriously biased and reductive
in their understanding of things. They actually cannot go very far before some
contradictions and troubles emerge.
The word of God, which is freely given to us and which is to be accepted by
faith, may not be immediately beneficial because it is, first of all,
mysterious, and then, it often involves some amount of suffering. But it is
what gives us the whole picture of things, what brings us not only to some
earthly destination, but to heaven itself.
We need to study it, and make it part of our systems. To be sure, assimilating
it is not only a matter of understanding it intellectually, but rather making
is flesh of our flesh. This can be achieved if beyond simply intellectualizing
it, we get to love it, we make it a way to love God and others, we translate it
into deeds and not just keeping it as good intentions and nice words.
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