In the readings this Sunday, the spiritual dynamic seems to be threefold: God draws near; sensing our own unworthiness, we protest; grace overcomes our weaknesses, failings, and fear, resulting in abundance far beyond our imagining.

Perhaps in listening to scripture week after week, people may wonder what all the mighty deeds described in the Bible have to do with them. These stories of visions, prophets, apostles, and miracles seem written on a grander scale than ordinary life.

I think we know how Peter feels. After a long and fruitless night he's tired and disappointed. He and his men have worked hard until dawn to catch fish, only to come home empty-handed. We've all invested time, energy, and resources into things that just didn't pan out: a special project at work perhaps, or something as dear and vital as a relationship.

The call of God in our lives is at once a call to the most profound and to the most practical. Though the invitation of God is to give our whole selves, the manner of our response is typically focused on small, specific actions—right where we live.

TRUST ME, the right job is going to come along,” his daughter Terry assured him. John was having his doubts. He had retired from full-time work but after several years found he couldn’t make it on his pension.

A popular television show several years ago featured ordinary people who decided that their physical appearance was so lacking, it was negatively affecting their entire life. So they left their family and friends and jobs for a number of months.

Though we may be of unclean lips and unclean hearts, God beckons us to voice our needs. Let us use those lips and hearts to say, “Here I am, Lord.”

I am reminding you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preached to you. What—or who—is it that saves? Saint Paul gets down to basics in today’s epistle reading. First, he lays out the “mechanics” of the gospel: Preachers preach it, people believe it, and all are saved.

Today we still cast the net. And Christ fills it. And Christ calls to conversion [those] who are found “in the depths of the sea,” as the psalm has it (Ps. 69:15), that is to say, among the waves and tempests of the world. —Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c. 377-444)