Homily for the First Sunday of Luke (St. Innocent of Kherson)

Homily for the First Sunday of Luke

18th Sunday after Pentecost

By St. Innocent of Kherson

“Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.” (Luke 5:5)

How pitiful, brethren, it is to hear this complaint from the lips of the poor laborers who had toiled throughout the night! But why has it been repeated in the Gospel for so many centuries? Is it to arouse our compassion for the Apostles? But what need have those who afterward caught the whole universe with their nets for the fish they failed to catch? What need have those who have long since been crowned with heavenly glory for our pity, when perhaps they themselves grieve and lament a hundredfold over us because we are so indifferent to attaining that glory which has also been appointed for us? If the Gospel continues to tell us of the unsuccessful fishing, it is because, in the persons of the Apostles-fishermen, all of us are portrayed in this circumstance, with our labors and occupations. Therefore, I can find no subject more edifying for our conversation than to apply this Apostolic fishing to our own lives.

Indeed, my brethren, what are all of us in this life if not various laborers striving for happiness, if not fishermen casting our nets into the sea of the cares of life? Each person has his own nets, his own fishing, his own successes and failures, his own prospects and goals. Therefore, allow me on this occasion to ask you: What has your fishing been like? What has each of you acquired thus far? Has the goal been attained? Has the desire been satisfied? Are you content?

Ah, how can we be content, many will inwardly exclaim, when we too, like the Apostles, have “toiled all night and caught nothing”! What have we not sacrificed in pursuit of what is called the happiness of life; what means have we not employed, and where and in what have we not sought it? And all in vain. Time has passed, our strength has been exhausted, our hair has turned white, our hands and minds have grown weak; it is already far past midnight in our lives, and dawn may soon come—and our nets are empty; we scarcely have enough to cover our nakedness, scarcely enough daily bread. “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing!”

We sympathize with you, poor and unsuccessful laborers, but we cannot commend you if you give yourselves over to murmuring against Providence. Poverty is burdensome, but who knows where wealth and luxury might have led you? Most likely, the same thing would have happened to you that usually happens to the fortunate ones of this world: you would have forgotten God and conscience, given yourselves over to amusements and impure passions, and defiled your souls and your lives with unseemly deeds. What is so surprising, then, if the goodness of God, foreseeing all this for you, secretly placed obstacles in your path and did not allow you to attain your goal? Did He not thus save you from the ruin of your own souls?

Instead of complaining about the disadvantages of your condition, make better use of its advantages, which are very great and by no means insignificant. What are these advantages? That you are not entangled, like the fortunate ones of this world, from head to foot in the bonds of worldly attachments, and therefore are a hundred times freer than they are in choosing new objects for your love and your activity; that your heart and spiritual taste have not been corrupted by the poisonous sweetness of sensual and sinful pleasures, and therefore you can more readily love spiritual blessings and more cheerfully endure the labors and struggles of the Christian life. The world does not favor you; it flees from you. What then? Cast away your love for it as well, and turn your soul and heart wholly toward God. The world sells its blessings and favors at a high price, while the gospel offers all its treasures freely: take as much as you desire and enrich your soul with them. When your conscience is clean, your heart is at peace through the grace of God, and is filled with a foretaste of eternal blessedness, then all the blessings of the world that now seem so attractive to you will lose their value in your eyes. You will come to love your very poverty, because it makes you free from the world and brings you nearer to God.

Others among you, brethren, can undoubtedly give an entirely opposite answer to the question posed above. You can point to what appears to be an abundant catch, to the titles and distinctions you have acquired, to the heaps of metal lying in your chests, to the houses you have built, to the gardens you have planted, to the multitude of friends you have gained, to the multitude of enemies you have overthrown, and to the multitude of undertakings you have accomplished.

We congratulate you, brethren, on these successes! But allow me to ask you another question: Why did you strive to acquire what you have acquired? Why did you attain honors and distinctions, gather treasures, toil and labor, fight and conquer? Was it merely so that you could say, “I have accomplished this or that”? Surely you had a further goal: to give your soul peace and contentment, to satisfy your heart. Have you, then, despite all your means, attained this final goal? Is there within you constant peace and constant joy? Has your heart ceased to hunger and thirst? Has the worm of discontent and weariness, which ordinarily gnaws at the human heart, died?

Ah, if those who are called the fortunate ones of this world would only pay attention to the condition of their souls and speak of what is happening within them, of what they feel and endure, they too would scarcely fail to repeat the Apostles’ complaint: “We have toiled all night and caught nothing”! We are called fortunate, and we ourselves force ourselves to believe it; but, alas, this happiness exists only around us; within us there is none. Despite all our superiority over our fellow men, and despite all our honors and distinctions, when you look within yourself, you see yourself in some dark abyss, and with horror you turn your gaze away from that slavery to the world in which you find yourself, from those countless compromises and degradations to which it was necessary to resort in order to attain outward greatness, and to which it is still necessary to resort to maintain it. We have acquired wealth, and it has been given to us as a means of satisfying our bodily needs; but in return it has brought with it a multitude of bitter cares of the soul. Our days are also gloomy, our nights heavy, our sleep troubled and often flees from us; disappointments, sorrows, illnesses—there is no end to them! There is no lack of sensual pleasures, but they ceased long ago to delight us: our senses are full, but our heart is empty; the soul aches, conscience pursues us, and we are often compelled to envy the peaceful lot of the poorest beggar. The future frightens us more each hour than it brings us joy. Will what we have gathered fall apart? Will an adverse wind arise and overturn the edifice of our happiness? Ah, the world is so deceitful and changeable, circumstances so unstable and uncertain, and relationships so fragile, that no one can guarantee even the next day. And what will become of us and our families, accustomed to ease and luxury? And when we think further about the final hour of life—and it is visibly drawing near—trembling seizes the heart. When we remember what we will take with us into eternity, with what we will appear before the judgment, we see with sorrow that nothing has yet been prepared for heaven, that everything we have acquired belongs to the earth and to corruption, and must leave us—and if only it left us! But what if it follows us and bears witness against us there concerning the injustices by which it was acquired, the temptations that accompanied its use, and the sins for which it served as a cause and instrument? Such thoughts give no peace; they secretly pursue us day and night, torment the soul, gnaw at the heart, and force us too to say: “We have toiled all night and caught nothing!” We have spent our entire lives, seemingly, in happiness; yet we have not attained true happiness—we have not attained it!

What shall I say to you, brethren, in response to your complaints? What counsel shall I give you? Shall I encourage you to undertake new labors and efforts in the pursuit of earthly happiness?

Shall I promise you in the future what you did not find in the past and do not find in the present? But that would mean deceiving both myself and you. No, my brethren, however painful it may perhaps be for some of you to hear the truth, we must proclaim it in the hearing of all. As long as you remain on the path of the world, enslaved to the flesh and to the senses, you will never attain true happiness. The world cannot give what it does not itself possess. Solomon is the witness. What did he lack? What could he not do as a king and a wise man? He did everything and experienced everything. What, then, did he find? He found that in our world everything is vanity and vexation of spirit, everything except the fear of God and virtue. The same will happen to you if you remain on the same path, with the same means of seeking happiness: having experienced everything, you will find it in nothing, and at the very end of life you will be forced to say: “We have toiled all night and caught nothing!” But how bitter and, at the same time, fruitless that complaint will then be!

What, then, you ask, should we do? Change the path, the goal, and the means; devote yourselves to God and eternity; begin to labor for the soul and for heaven; strive toward the struggles of faith and virtue. This does not mean that you should abandon your calling or bring the course of your daily affairs to a halt. No, let them continue in their proper order: “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called” (1 Corinthians 7:20). But until now you have labored for earth and for time, seeking only your own advantage and your own pleasure in everything, and in all circumstances and relationships you have been guided by self-love. God and eternity, conscience and the soul have been matters of secondary importance, perhaps even the last of all. Let everything now be put in its proper place! Let what is divine, spiritual, and eternal take precedence and dominion over what is earthly and sensual; instead of self-love, let love for God and neighbor become the source of your actions; let earthly blessings be used for good works; let misfortunes and sorrows be endured in humility and submission to the will of God; and let preparation for death occupy the foremost place among all your concerns!

When this beneficial change takes place within you, then, in the name of the Lord, we promise peace to your souls. This will not harm your earthly happiness; on the contrary, it will purify and sanctify it and give it true value in your eyes. Even misfortune, should it please the Lord to send it upon you, will lose its bitterness, for you will see in it a remedy for healing your souls from the leprosy of sin.

This is our counsel, brethren—the counsel for everyone and for each one! We can give no other, because there is no other in the Gospel. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.