They let the nets down and caught such a large number of fish that their nets were about to break. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. (Lk. 5:6-7)
Fishing on the `Right’ Side of the Boat
February 10, 2013, 5th
Sunday of Ordinary Time
Isaiah 6: 1-2, 3-8 I Corinthians 15:1-11 Luke 5: 1-11
Alleluia,
alleluia.
A reading
from the holy Gospel according to Luke
Glory to you, Lord.
Fishers
of men
One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of Lake Gennesaret,
great crowds
pressed in on Him to listen to the Word of God. He saw
two boats pulled up on the beach; the fishermen had left them there, and were
washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats - the one belonging to Simon
Peter - He told him to push out a short distance from the shore. Then He sat
down and taught the crowds from the boat. After He had finished speaking, He
said to Simon,” Push the boat out further into
deep water, and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in reply, “Master, we
have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command
I will lower the nets.”
They let the nets
down and caught such a large number of fish that their nets were about to
break. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.
They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from
me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” He was awestruck by the great catch of fish.
And so were his partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Jesus said to
Simon, “Do not be afraid! From now on you will be fishers of men.” They beached
their boats, left everything and followed Jesus.
The
Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord
Jesus Christ.
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Introduction
Ash Wednesday 2013
This
coming Wednesday February13, 2013 will be Ash Wednesday, and we will change the
liturgical clock from Ordinary Time to the Extraordinary Time of Lent in preparation
for Easter March 31, 2013.
All
three synoptic gospels recount how Jesus was led into the desert by the Holy
Spirit, where He fasted and prayed for forty days and nights. (Mt. 4:1-11; Mk. 1:12 -13; Lk. 4:1-13) In honor of the
Lord’s 40 days of fasting and praying, the Council of Laodicaea (360 A.D.)
prescribed a 40 day penitential season in preparation for Easter.
Poor fishing on the Sea of Galilee
Twice the gospels report
poor fishing on the Sea of Galilee. In Luke’s gospel today Simon Peter complains
to Jesus that he and the others were fishing all night but didn’t catch a
thing. Jesus tells the apostles to push their boat
out further into deep water, and lower their nets for a catch. They obey
and make such a huge catch of fish that Simon Peter falls to his knees and
protests his sinfulness, and Jesus responds by making the apostles “fishers of
men.” (Lk. 5:1-11)
A critical shortage of fishers of men
Twice the gospel says that the heart of Jesus was moved with compassion
for the crowds who were “like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mt. 9: 36, Mk. 6: 34) Like Jesus the Church should be moved with compassion
for the faithful, who are daily becoming “like sheep without a shepherd.” The Church has a crisis
on her hands: a critical shortage of fishers
of men – a critical shortage of priests. And band-aids won’t fix the crisis! Importing
priests from other countries (whose poor English the faithful can’t understand)
is nothing but a band-aid which won’t fix the crisis. And `clustering parishes’
under the supervision of an over-worked pastor is also a band-aid which won’t fix
the crisis.
Addressing the shortage innovatively
and courageously
Former Archbishop
of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland OSB, addressed the priest-shortage crisis in his
Archdiocese in a very innovative and courageous manner. In a pastoral letter he
wrote:
If it became
evident that no resident priest would be available for a parish, and that there
was no prospect of getting one in the near future, I would be willing to help
the community surface a qualified candidate for ordained priesthood – even if a
married man - and without raising false expectations or unfounded hope for him
or the community, present such a candidate to the Pastor of the Universal
Church [the Pope] for light and guidance. (Catholic Herald, January 10, 1991)
Rome’s response
Rome’s response to
Weakland’s shockingly innovative and courageous suggestion was unambiguous. When
he went to Rome in 1993 for his ad limina
visit to the Pope, a letter was hand-delivered to him from the Congregation for
Bishops, which unequivocally made it clear to Weakland that,
Among the requirements of
Catholic unity there is the need to accept the tradition of the Church.
According to ecclesial practice, reinforced by a Synod of Bishops, it is not possible to present married men for
ordination to the priesthood.
On the question of the ordination of women, your position is perceived to be in opposition to the teaching of the Church. Moreover, the charge of ‘intransigency’ – a word used by your Excellency – on the part of the Church in this matter, can seriously damage Church authority and Church government.
Not much has changed.
Not much has changed since 1993. On Oct. 4, 2012, the
Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced that Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest
for 45 years, had been canonically `dismissed’ both from Maryknoll and the Roman Catholic priesthood. Why was Fr.
Bourgeois so soundly punished with canonical dismissal from Maryknoll and the
priesthood? It was because he actively endorsed the ordination of women! A priest
`guilty’ of advocating the ordination of women is soundly punished by the
Church with dismissal from the priesthood, but priests and bishops guilty of
child sex abuse are not!
A parting shot
Weakland delivers a
parting salvo at the Church’s exclusion of women, when he writes in his book A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church (p. 340):
When historians,
decades from now, talk about the lack of vocations to the priesthood in the
Catholic Church at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first
century, or when they try to analyze the reasons for the falling off of active
church participation, I hope they do not forget to include as a contributing
factor this silent group that left the Church – or at least stood by the
sidelines – not because of the sexual abuse by 4 percent of its priests, but
because of closing the discussion on the inclusion of women at all levels. From
generation to generation, women have always been the most significant bearers
of the Church’s life and tradition; to lose them was tantamount to losing the
future.
Innovative and courageous Presbyterians
The Rev. Sarah Sarchet Butter (an ordained Presbyterian
minister) officiated at the funeral of her mother-in-law, Margaret Butter - a
pioneer CEO, philanthropist and patron of the arts in Milwaukee. Rev. Sarah officiated powerfully, as with
great expression and obvious feeling she read from the Book of Proverbs,
chapter 31, which sings the praises of a woman who is a good mother, wife, and
manager of her household. At the final commendation she invited the crowd in
the cemetery to draw near to the casket kissed by a setting sun on a day filled
with the fine feel of fall. She pulled everyone into a heartfelt final good-bye.
See how innovative and courageous these Presbyterians are!
See how they resist the temptation to have recourse to an “ecclesial practice, reinforced by a Synod of
Bishops,” or recourse to “a long unbroken tradition” of ordaining only
men! See how they have fixed their critical shortage of fishers of men: not only do they ordain married men, they even
ordain women!
Priest - good at mystery, poetry, ecstasy
At the end of the
day, the priest-shortage forces us to ask a pared-down and bare-boned question:
What is a priest in the first place? When we, the priestly people, go looking
for a priestly head, what should we be looking for?
We should be looking for someone who’s good at poetry - good at using words which say more than what they seem to
say. Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner says, “The perfect priest is perfect
poet."
We should be looking
for someone who’s good at ecstasy— good at lifting up the Sunday
congregation and having it cry out, like Peter, James, and John at the
Transfiguration: “Oh, how good it is for us to be here! Let’s dig in and stay
up here forever.”(Mt. 17:4)
Good at lifting up the Sunday
congregation and having it cry out: “Oh how good it is for us to be here! We’re
indeed coming back next Sunday!”
Conclusion
Crisis - `a blessed moment of opportunity’
An
old oriental wisdom looks upon a crisis positively -- as `a blessed moment of
opportunity.’ In the priest- crisis before us we hear the Church praying “for
young men who will be generous enough to devote their lives to the priesthood.”
Perhaps it would be much more profitable for the Church to look upon the
priest-crisis as `a blessed moment of opportunity.’ That will send the Church
launching off into the deep, and fishing on the `right’ side of boat, as the
Lord commanded.
