424th Meditation
“I will once more cast the net of my love. Cast the net with me!” (Inner Word).
Are we ready to cooperate in the Lord’s great catch of fish? Do we still have hope that many people will find faith, precisely in these dark times that loom over humanity?
Let us think of St. Peter. He had spent the whole night unsuccessfully fishing. When the Lord told him to let down his nets again, he first replied, “Master, we have labored all the night, and have taken nothing.” But then Peter added the decisive words that we should all respond to the Lord’s exhortation: “But at thy word I will let down the net”. So he did and caught a very great multitude of fishes (Lk 5:4-6).
What is decisive is not our own assessment of whether it is worth casting the net of love once more, but the Lord’s exhortation. We are only His collaborators. He wants us to cast the net with Him, trusting in His word, precisely in these times when people are often disoriented, the witness of the Church has weakened, politics is often corrupt and our Father is falling into oblivion.
Our Lord wants to cast the net of love once again so that people may be attracted by this love, so that they may discover the secret of their existence – to be beloved children of the Heavenly Father – and so that this life may give them the true happiness they seek.
Certainly He has never ceased to cast the net of love. But there may be times when it becomes particularly urgent to do so. If I am not mistaken, the present time is one such moment, for “there are still so many who are not yet in the meadows which I have prepared for them” (inner Word).