Word to the Wise
Thursday, August 1, 2019 - Thursday in the 17th Week in Ordinary Time
[Exod 40:16-21, 34-38 and Matt 13:47-53]"The Kingdom of heaven is like a new thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age." [Matthew]
AUGUST 1 ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI cssr - [founder of the Redemptorists, bishop and doctor of the church]
My hometown in Louisiana is in the middle of one of the best bass fishing areas in the USA. My dad was an ardent weekend fisherman (and sometimes, after his retirement, on weekdays too). Someone once gave him a plaque with what is known as "The Fisherman's Prayer" which he kept on the wall beside his bed. It was quoted at his funeral: "...When in the Lord's great landing net and peacefully asleep, that in his mercy I be judged big enough to keep." Jesus' image of the net and the catch and the sorting-out would have been very familiar to his audience in Galilee. His first disciples were fishermen from the area around the Sea of Galilee, especially Capernaum.
The Gospel According to Matthew has given us the image of the wheat and the weeds, and now the image of the landing net and the sorting-out of the fish. Later on we will have the dramatic vision of the Final Judgment. We are accountable to God for our lives. If we are honest, there will be times when we may be more like a weed than like the wheat. There are times when we may not be "big enough to keep." Sometimes we may look more like a goat than a sheep (Matt. 25:31-45). The idea is to try to be, as much as we can, like wheat and big fish and sheep. If we do, we won't have to fear a bad outcome. What is certain is that there will be an outcome! AMEN