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Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. – St. John Paul II

I first stumbled on this quotation by St. John Paul II early in the summer. It’s a striking quote, and the words seem to follow you around without losing their edge. I suspect this has something to do with our immersion in a society that – whatever else it does or claims – tends to capitalize on fear, reward consumer-driven complacency, and avoid the question of Truth with squeamish mistrust… all of which the monastic rhythms of prayer and work, ora et labora, quietly and undemonstratively counter.

In a way, the monks’ faithful example offers us an act of hope and a grounding of calm from which to attend to St. John Paul II’s exhortation. And now, at the start of a new academic year at the Abbey, it feels natural to take up these words in earnest and consider what they might mean for each of us.

Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

There’s a reason St. John Paul II begins with Christ’s bracing exhortation, given more often than any other scriptural directive: Do not be afraid.

No matter how you approach it, the deep is frightening. It’s the place in our lives – wherever this might be for each of us – where we have to confront our human weakness. It’s the mission that’s beyond us, the need that’s more than we can fill, the question for which we have no answer.

We are all called to holiness – to the terrifying, vibrant love that empties us of illusion and pride, transforming our lives if we let it – if we let Him. We’ve heard over and over “Do not be afraid,” and we recognize that there is nothing mediocre about the sacrificial love that sets the world on fire – or the adventure of a life drawn to God, who accompanies us in so many strange, profound, intimate, and sacramental ways. We may not always recognize this quality of adventure, but whether our vision is free to perceive it or not, the world is charged with His grandeur, and the spiritual battle, with its eternal stakes and its call to heroism, is real and never limited by what the world tells us is big or important or worthy of our attention.

God calls us into the deep not to crush us but to lead us into this adventure and beyond fear – to invite us to trust Him so radically that we allow His love to fill us beyond our capacities, transforming even our limitations into His strength and accomplishing in us what we knew we could not do.

Do not be afraid.  

Those words are for you. They’re for each of us, whether or not we know which way to travel in order to “put out into the deep” at all.

Just know that whenever we find ourselves standing with the disciples, shifting uncertainly before blurting out, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” His answer to us is the same: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:5-6).

Put yourself in His presence and ask Him to lead you. Ask Him to hear the prayer you may or may not have words for. He is the Way, and He will never leave you to venture the deep alone. Follow Him. And lower your nets into the deep you can’t fathom. He will do the rest.