Jesus goes fishing for men

Today Monsignor Wallace died

He’s the first priest ordained for our diocese. He is a wonderful man and always called us saints, he wanted us to be holy. Just recently I was asking him a technical question about the Mass and he replied, “Well, I’m just happy you’re a priest and saying the Mass!” Now that his funeral will be coming up he will receive an outpouring of love. He is a beloved priest here and has been at many many parishes.

So, if you want to be popular and have people show up at your funeral, be a priest.

But that’s not where our purpose comes from, the people loving us. And that is the great temptation for us, to love the affection of our people more than God, so says Fr. Raphael.

But we all have to wrestle with this, no?

I went to a FOCUS conference, for University students

And I was just another face in the crowd. No big deal that I was a priest. I saw famous speakers, famous priests, famous nuns, giving talks to thousands of people and I had the thought, I’m not doing enough as a priest, I need to start a YouTube channel or something. I was talking to a young girl who asked if what she was doing was enough, not married yet, still trying to figure things out after college, am I anybody?

And we all struggle to be seen, known, appreciated.

Holiness is found in the ordinary

And so today’s Gospel strikes me because we are not a people in darkness anymore. We know the light, Christ, and He knows us, He is our priest who prays for us, our head who prays in us, and our God who we pray to. (OoR, III Sunday OT Responsory). I noticed at this conference that its really quite ordinary to give your life away to Christ. I get much accolades for doing so, but it is all of your job to give your life totally to Christ, whether it costs you a net or two and your boat, or your money, or changing jobs, or affection from your family who no longer practices, the cost is everything, and while it is a truly extraordinary thing to do! We as Catholics are all expected to do that. That being said, is it proper for all of you to go to daily Mass? Probably not. Should you donate all your money to the Church? Probably not. Now you have to make time for proper prayer and tithing and using your time well, but that is the ordinary part of positioning your life to love God. It is an ordinary thing since we know Christ to follow him, but we must know that our worth, our value, our “being seen” doesn’t come from how famous we are or the affection of others, we are known by the light, by Christ, and that is enough. It is not so much to worry about what others think of you, what does God think of you? And from this position we live our lives.

Because He comes for us

“Come after me”… “he saw two other brothers, James…and his brother John…He called them and immediately they left”

This was not the first time they met. Read Ch. 1 of St. John’s Gospel. Jesus shows us, said John Chrysostom, that Jesus shows us how to fish here:

4:19 Follow Me How Jesus Called His First Disciples. Chrysostom: “And they left their nets, and followed him.” And yet John (the Evangelist) says that they were called in a different way. From this it is evident that this was a second call. One may conclude this from several evidences. For there it is said that they came to him when “John had not yet been thrown into prison”; but here it says after he was in confinement. And there Andrew calls Peter, but here Jesus calls both. On the one hand, John says, “Jesus saw Simon coming and said, ‘You are Simon, the Son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.’ ” On the other hand, Matthew says that he was already called by that name, for he says, “Seeing Simon who was called Peter.” … In the other instance, Andrew is seen coming into his house and hearing many things. But here, having heard one brief call, they both followed immediately. When they earlier had seen that John was in prison and that Jesus was withdrawing, it would not have been unnatural for them to return again to their own craft, fishing, having followed him at the beginning and then later having left him to fish. Accordingly, you now see that Jesus finds them actively fishing. But he neither resisted them at first when they desired to withdraw from him, nor having withdrawn themselves, did he let them go altogether. He gave way when they moved aside from him and came again to win them back. This, after all, is exactly what fishing is all about. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 14.

Manlio Simonetti, ed., Matthew 1–13, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 70–71.

And Christ came to save sinners 1 Tim 1:15 “This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost.”

And so Christ comes into our home towns, our workplaces and homes, and calls each and everyone of you by name, indeed you would not be here had Christ not called you to His Church, which is what the word Church, Ekklesia, specifically means, the called out ones. No one can declare that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Indeed you couldn’t get to Mass this morning had it not been for the Holy Spirit moving you. But it feels so ordinary, so boring, so normal you say. Yes, but God is not boring, and our lives a great adventure that again today God calls us out to.

Today is Word of the Lord Sunday

As declared by Pope Francis 3 years ago. What will happen to you if you are permeated by the Word of God this next year, to fulfill your New Year’s Resolution, of course? It will feel ordinary, but you just might become a saint, because Christ is calling you to be that. And if a saint, then maybe this prophecy from Jeremiah 16:16 might be fulfilled in you too, “Look!—oracle of the Lord—I will send many fishermen to catch them. After that, I will send many hunters to hunt them out from every mountain and hill and rocky crevice.”

Christ Is not just calling his leaders 2,000 years ago, he calls you today, again, because he is fishing for you, and some he is still luring and others of you have been brought into the boat already, and some of you have become active fishers and hunters. But the goal isn’t to finish the adventure of your lives today, it is to walk everyday with Christ, one day at a time, getting out of bed each day to do your work and your prayers, saying with the Psalmist today, “Psalm 27:14 “Wait for the Lord, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the Lord!”