Dear Brothers and Sisters,
A friend once gave me a poem called ‘Dash’. It spoke of a woman who gave a eulogy for her friend. She referred to the two dates that were to placed on her tombstone. First came the date of her birth and then the date of her passing. They she made her point – what matters most of all in life is the dash between those two years. The dash represents all the time that she spent alive on earth.
It matters not, she said, how much we own, the cars, the house, the money. What matters is how we live that dash.
I was struck by the simple words of Jesus Christ in the gospel today. He does not give a big speech or lay out a three-year program. He only says, ‘follow me’. And the apostles immediately left their boat and their father, and followed him. Two of them died on a cross as he did; one upside down and the other brother on an X-shaped cross.
They were all invited to be fishers of men which must have sounded unusual or strange to them. What did they gain by becoming a fisher of men? Incredible joy and peace!
To be a fisher of men means to draw people out of death, out of the sea, which is a symbol of death. If they are at the bottom of the sea they have only a few minutes to live. Someone has to act quickly. You need to fish them out, to drag them out of the sea of the world where they are drowning. If you don’t save them what will the world do for them? They will become even more alienated by seeking things that make they suffer more, that puts them deeper into the sea. They really need someone with a net or a good hook.
To be a fisher of men you need to have been fished out of the sea first by someone else. How did God fish you? Usually by an experience of being loved and forgiven. When you have this experience, you can then fish others by doing the same thing that was done to you. It is not that you have to destroy your life, suffer and be perfect, how silly would that be. A Christian loves this life, enjoys it and lives in heaven here on earth. To know and experience this love of God is to be in heaven and to share it with others.
The apostles don’t leave their boat and follow Jesus for something worse. They are not stupid men. They make this sacrifice and receive something much better, much greater. It is like they are being asked for $1,000 and are given back $1 million. They renounce something for a life that is vastly superior. Like St. Paul says that to be with Christ is much better.
To be in the world, to be worldly, a person can suffer many things due to sexuality or chasing money or whatever. They often look for life in passing things and in the end have nothing. They don’t have eternal life or joy or peace. The only thing that gives life is Jesus Christ. He is the only one because he is life, he gives joy. How wonderful it is that Christ is passing by today. He comes to look for you at the shore of the sea where you might be in the depths of suffering. In this situation he goes to look for you. Today the Lord says, ‘follow me’. Ask him to give you the strength to get behind him. So that he may give you life and that he makes you a fisher of men.
Someone will give a personal experience of being saved in each Mass this weekend and then to invite everyone to the catechesis that begins here on Monday, January 23 at 8 PM. It continues for several weeks on Mondays and Thursdays and if you miss one then make the next one. Not every parish has this wonderful opportunity to see the love of God for us.