I have always been a night owl, and even more so in the summer.  In my early 20s, I would rarely go to bed before 2:00am and would often be up all night at least once a week, not because of studying or special projects, but simply because that was my natural rhythm of things.  Often times, I would spend some of those late night hours going for a run or to a lighted, outdoor basketball court.  And as you can imagine, being of that age, many of these times I was trying to figure out what to do with my life: what classes to take, whether to not to stay in school, or to go back to school, what job to apply for, or even whether or not to ask someone out on a date.  And also, as you may imagine, on many occasions I would step up to the free throw line praying to God: If I make this shot, then it means . . .

I spent a lot of years searching, and at no time did those shots, whether they were made or missed, ever actually help in guiding me through my questions.  Prior to the priesthood, the search took me to moving over 20 times and living in 10 different states.  I had so many jobs during that time that I had to make a timeline to help me even keep them straight.  And every day my grandma said her prayers that I would find my path in life (and my mom too).

In this Sunday’s Gospel we read the account of the calling of Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, our Lord’s command to set out for the deep, after they had spent all night fishing without any success, and the miraculous catch that followed.  It was important for Simon and Andrew, and James and John who were in the other boat, to have spent the night in futility.

The purpose of fishing is not always to catch fish, just as the purpose of discerning and searching for one’s way in life is not always to find the way.  There is virtue and life in the act of searching itself.  To spend time looking for God and something that is valuable to us is worthwhile.

There is also the grace of one’s efforts being futile.  We grow in humility through the failure, as well as perseverance; we gain experience and encounter of things that we never would have had we gone straight to success; futility trains us in problem solving, in learning and pushing us toward different perspectives on things.  Ultimately, however, the Grace of futility is found in what Peter found, it leads us to outside and beyond ourselves to Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  This is what he meant when he bragged that Christ was made perfect in his (Peter’s) weakness.

Our time in futility is purifying in ways that only it can purify, it allows God to work within us and prepares us to then set out for the deep and witness the great catch that Christ then captures through us.