Catching men and women for Jesus by sharing our joy - Homily for 5th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C

 A few years ago, I went on a fishing trip that was far away from a Catholic Church.  I was concerned about being able to get to Sunday Mass as it would be several hours each way to attend Mass. I did not have my own car to travel to Mass, so on Sunday I read the Mass readings, offered some intercessions, and prayed the Our Father. Upon return I felt a need to go to confession and told the priest I missed my Sunday obligation due to the fishing trip.  He asked me whether I was fishing or catching. His question puzzled me a bit, but I told him we had caught a lot of fish on the trip.  He then said with a wry smile if you were only fishing your penance would be a full rosary, but since you were catching it will just be three Hail Marys.  I think he too enjoyed catching much more than fishing and was being merciful like Jesus is for us.

 

In today’s Gospel we hear another story about fishing and catching. Jesus travels to the Lake of Genneserat to preach and there are so many people he gets into boat to avoid the swell of the crowd.  He chooses the boat that Simon is in.  Simon had encountered Jesus once before when Jesus cured his mother-in-law of an illness.  Simon was a fisherman by profession, so he knew very well how to fish. Jesus requests for Simon, who had not caught a thing after fishing all night, to throw out his net into the deep for a catch, and he may have been a bit reluctant. But in having previously encountered Jesus, he obediently responds to Jesus. request.  The catch of fish was so astounding that the nets were tearing, and the boats were full to the point of sinking.  

 

Now to give some perspective of how much fish this was, we have evidence of a  boat
recovered in an archeological site in 1986 when the Lake of Gennesaret went through a severe drought. The age of the boat was estimated to be from the time of Jesus and was 25 feet long, by 8 feet wide, and four feet deep.  It would take an incredible number of fish to fill two boats of that size. The income from this abundance of fish must have been more than Simon and his companions made in over a year. The immensity of the catch was so overwhelming that Simon in humility pleads to Jesus, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  

 

I really think this is why Jesus chose to encounter Simon because of his awareness of being an unworthy sinner. Jesus responds in love and mercy to Simon’s confession, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching men.”  Jesus doesn’t care about his past, but only about who he can become. He invites him on a much greater mission than catching fish to satisfy the physical hunger of men.  He chooses to invite him to catch men and women whose spirits are hungering for everlasting life. 

 

I think the miraculous catch of fish had a dual purpose for Simon, James, and John. 

First to elicit a response of faith in Jesus and also to provide income for the families, so they were free to leave everything to follow Jesus becoming “catchers of men”.  Simon’s weakness in sin is overcome by the grace of Jesus to heal the wound of his sins.

 

We are invited as well to become “catcher” of men and women for Jesus. A fisherman needs to have the right tackle, bait, and patience to attract fish.  To be catchers of men our bait and tackle is the joy we have for our faith in Jesus and sharing it with others.  When we are filled with joy, people will be drawn to us and be attracted to become Jesus’ disciples, because they will want some of that joy as well. Why are we joyful?  Because of Christ’s love for us and the gift of eternal life he won for us which gives us hope.  To share the joy, we need to start simply by being friends with others and getting to know their stories. Many people are lacking hope today and need to know that someone cares about them. They may feel like Simon did saying, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful person”, because of their past. If we listen to them being the eyes, ears, hands and feet for Jesus and sharing the story of Jesus and what he did for us we can give them hope. We do so by giving the gift of an encounter with Jesus by sharing with our heart of who Jesus is for us and why he make’s a difference in our life. 

 

St. Paul sums up his encounter with Jesus very well today in the reading we heard from the to the Corinthians.  In just a few sentences he shares about how his encounter with Jesus changed him from being a persecutor of Christians to becoming the apostle to the Gentiles. He starts the story with what Jesus did for us: dying for our sins, so we can be forgiven and live eternally. Many people still today still don’t know the story.  This upcoming Lent can be a good time focus on the Holy Father's call to bring hope to others in this Jubilee Year of Hope. Reading the Gospels. or a book like Matthew Kelley’s Rediscovering Jesus can be a good thing to do over Lent to help us know the story of Jesus so we can share with others.  This can also help us as well to give us hope as we go through the challenging times in our life.  I pray for all of us to be open to Jesus’ invitation of catching men and women for him and that the gift of the Eucharist empowers us with God’s grace to do so.