18th Sunday after Pentecost – Luke 5:1–11

“Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
(Luke 5:4)

Peter didn’t wake that morning to be transformed. He just wanted to clean his nets. His hands were raw. The lake had yielded nothing. He wasn’t pondering theology.

He was rinsing silt and silence from another fruitless night. He was done. Hungry. Bone-tired. The water, once generous, had turned mute. And that’s where Christ finds him.

Not in the synagogue. Not during prayer. But in the ache of labor. In the weary silence of “enough already.”

“Put out into the deep,” Jesus says.

Peter hesitates. It makes no sense. But the voice—calm, commanding, impossibly kind—unsettles his logic. He rows. He casts again. And the deep gives way.

Fish surge. Nets strain. Water spills. But it isn’t the miracle that undoes Peter.

It’s the mercy.

“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
(Luke 5:8)

Because this isn’t about fish. This is about the Holy stepping into his ordinary. About Christ using his empty boat as an altar.

And still, He stays.

Even Here, Even Now

I didn’t become an Orthodox Christian because I had answers.  I became Orthodox because I was drowning.

It happened before I knew how to cross myself or follow the Psalter tones.  I was in another hospital. Another corridor of hunger and hush. No candles. No icons. No incense.

Just vending machines, unanswered calls, and the hollow prayer: Please, God, help me hold on.  I sat on a plastic chair and forgot how to breathe. My Bible stayed zipped in my bag.  But even then, something brushed the edges of my heart. Not a voice. Not a vision.

But a Person.

A whisper: Put out into the deep. Not to prove. Not to fix.  But to be found.

A Word from Chrysostom

This call echoes through centuries.  St. John Chrysostom writes:

“Every time the Gospel is preached, I see no one else but Peter or Andrew … casting out the Evangelical net into the ocean.”

The net is not cleverness. It’s obedience. Christ doesn’t ask for polish. He asks for a boat.

A Saint’s Story: Maria in the Streets

I think of Saint Maria of Paris. Poet. Refugee. Mother. Nun. She wrote:

“At the Last Judgment, I will not be asked whether I was successful … but whether I fed Christ in the person of the least of His brethren.”

She did not serve Christ from strength, but from surrender. And it cost her life. But her writings?
They dance with joy, humor, even whimsy.

She had learned the secret of Peter’s boat: The miracle is not in control. The miracle is that Christ steps in anyway.

What if this is your sea?

This moment—your anxiety, your numb prayers, your unraveling—is not exile. It may be the place He waits. Not to scold. But to call you deeper.

St. Isaac the Syrian reminds us:

“The soul that loves God has its rest in God and in God alone… they do not attain peace until they draw near to hope in God.”

Not peace from the storm. But peace in it.

The Rowing That Becomes Prayer

Dear one, here is your boat. And here is the deep. Sit. Light a candle if you’d like. Or just face East. Receive the morning light as your icon. Before words, offer the ache that brought you here.

If it comes, whisper: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

If it doesn’t, say just one word: Jesus.

Let that be the oar in your hand.

And then—row.
Small. Slow. Still. Row.

You don’t need to see the end. You only need to stay in the boat--where Christ already stands, guiding you into the deep.

Liturgical Echo: From the 18th Sunday After Pentecost

“Thou … preserve the peace of our land,
that we, being delivered from the fear of our enemies,
may with confidence call upon Thee, O Lord,
and with love magnify Thee.”
(Orthodox Church in America, Sunday Liturgy)

Let that be the hymn beneath your week. You may not feel peace yet.  But He has already stepped in.

For the Journey

“Obedience is the tomb of the will and the resurrection of humility.”
— St. John Climacus

“Keep your mind in hell and despair not.”
— St. Silouan the Athonite

“Without Christ, life is tasteless, stale, and empty.
With Christ, everything is transformed—even failure becomes the beginning of abundance.”
— Fr. Alexander Schmemann

This is the road I walk: Not always strong. Not always sure. But turning—again and again—toward Him. And the miracle?

He is already in the boat.

Glory to God for all things.

Perpetua