The apostles were certainly very fortunate. With their own eyes they saw the miraculous catch of fish, healings, and many other miracles. Even spending a short time beside Jesus was enough for them to understand in their hearts that it was He and to fall prostrate before Him. What, then, is left for us?

We are left with no lesser miracle: to recognize Him in the Gospel; to gain sight in our hearts across dozens of centuries; after reading a very short account of the miraculous catch, suddenly to realize that He is standing beside us—not in a boat, perhaps, but simply in the room—and thus perhaps to find ourselves closer to Him than the fishermen of Galilee were.

Fishing in daylight, when fish hide from the sun, is a hopeless business, especially since Simon, an experienced fisherman, had caught nothing even at night. But Jesus catches His fish in the least suitable places and at the least suitable time. And now His main catch is not on the shore, where crowds of people were ready to listen to His parables, but in a small boat, where several people were found who were ready to leave their familiar life and follow the new Teacher to the end.

If the other evangelists emphasize that the fishermen who followed Jesus became "fishers of men" (Mark 1:17), then here, in Luke, they themselves are first of all caught in daylight - caught by His light, by the miracle of His person. For without this "absolute captivity" to the image of Jesus, they would have been unable to do anything to bring His Kingdom near and proclaim His Gospel.

Metropolitan Anthony, in one of his works ("The Spiritual Journey"), in the chapter on Bartimaeus, unexpectedly also speaks about today's passage on the miraculous catch, at the same time recalling the story of the healing of the centurion's servant. In other words, he points us to the spiritual closeness of these two events. We must understand what they have in common and make it a rule for our spiritual life. "It is reckless to seek a premature meeting. Therefore the whole teaching of the Orthodox Church about prayer and about conduct in life says: 'Do not seek any mystical experience; in reverent worship ask God, with all the attention and faith available to you, with all the power of hope and aspiration, to change you, to make you such that someday you may meet Him,'" Metropolitan Anthony writes.

Let us not force the Lord to reveal Himself to us. More than that, when we experience something that seems so stunning to us that we are sure this is the Lord giving a sign, this is Him, and it delights us, when we are in a state of some spiritual elation and it seems to us, here it is, the miracle, we must make a serious effort to push this experience away from ourselves, as it were, and try to step back from it. Then, if it really is something true, after our emotional sphere has calmed down, we will clearly see whether there is substance in what happened to us, or whether it is pseudomysticism, a temptation, and so on.

Peter, like the centurion, is moved by a feeling of deepest humility, by his own smallness before the face of God and his unworthiness to commune with Him. But this is precisely what the Lord values so highly, and it is precisely such a person whom He does not abandon.