Third Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year A- Fishers Of Men

Off the coast of Maine lies an island so small that the surrounding ocean can be seen from any point on the island. A visitor to the Sunday school class asked the children, "How many of you," he asked, "have ever seen the Atlantic Ocean?" To his surprise, not a single hand went up.

There is such a thing as being so much a part of one's environment that we're simply not aware of it. Father John Colbein said we don't know for sure who discovered water, but we're pretty sure it wasn't the fish. Those Sunday school children saw the water they just didn't know it was the Atlantic Ocean. [source: online]

Similarly, the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, which is today, is known as the Sunday of the Word of God and although Catholics are not popularly known for personal Bible reading, we may not realize it, but we hear in the Sunday Mass three-year cycle of readings, plus the two-year cycle of daily Mass readings:

13.5 percent of the Old Testament (not counting the Responsorial Psalms);

89.8 percent of the Gospels, and

71.5 percent of the entire New Testament. (source: Catholic.com)

And for those who pray the liturgy of the hours, they read nearly all the books of the Bible, and we have a group of parishioners who pray Morning Prayer of the liturgy after the 9 am weekday Mass.

As a side note, in 2019, the Pew Research Center did a computational analysis of nearly 50,000 on-line sermons on length and content and found that Catholic clergy preach much more briefly than clergy in mainline Protestant churches and evangelical churches, which is not always a bad thing; in fact, Pope Francis tells clergy to prepare their homilies well and told them to limit homilies to 10 minutes, and when he says this, people applaud vigorously. The Pew study also found, however, that Catholic homilies referred to New Testament Scripture 68% of the time and only 28% of the Old Testament, compared to 93%/66% for evangelical Protestants, and 82%/43% for mainline Protestant ecclesial communities.

It just so happens that also in 2019, as I mentioned, Pope Francis declared that “the third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God…. A day devoted to the Bible, [which should] not be seen as a yearly event but rather a year-long event, for we urgently need to grow in our knowledge and love of the Scriptures and of the risen Lord, who continues to speak his word and to break bread in the community of believers.” [source: The Ordo].

The more we hear and read the Bible, the easier and more naturally it is to allow Jesus make us fishers of men, as Matthew 4:19 says today in our Gospel.

E.g. A few years ago I was talking about the Gospel reading at Mass with a family friend named Gloria and she was talking to me on her car’s speakers. She told me later that her brother Paul, who was traveling with her, heard our conversation. Gloria said that he had been away from the faith for over fifty years and she had been praying for his conversion. Later Gloria told me that he liked our conversation and he decided to go to Mass again, but later he told her that he was sad that because he could not go to communion. But, later he approached the parish priest and went to confession—that reminds me of the saying of being a Fisher of Men - I catch, HE cleans.

Paul also told Gloria that he joined a rosary group at his parish and even started going to Eucharistic Adoration. Gloria asked him what made him change his stubborn heart and he said that he felt Gloria’s joy in talking to me that day when she was driving.

The bait that attracted Paul was Gloria’s joy, which reminds me of the theme of “No room for gloom,” as we heard in our First Reading from Isaiah 9:2. Fish don't have eyelids, so they can't close their eyes. They are always watching to see if our faith is truly genuine and worthy of their attention.

“If you want to catch fish, you don’t use bait you like; you use bait the fish like.” [source: Scouting Magazine, March-April 2020.]—it could be watersports, a trip to the mountains, activities that people like, where a short testimony of sharing what Jesus has done for you can be shared.

However, people’s desire and hunger for God and personal change can outstrip their personal relationship with Jesus.

So, the first thing to say when fishing for people is the Kerygma— Kerygma rhythms with Charisma.

Kerygma means proclamation or announcement that Jesus suffered and died for you on the Cross and you can have forgiveness of your sins if you ask Him to come into your life as your personal Savior. You can certainly add some Scripture and explain it, like Ephesians 2:8, which the Church uses to explain salvation in the catechism, number 1996, “For by grace alone, you have been saved, in faith by Christ’s saving work, and not because of any merit on your part, we are accepted by and receive the Holy Spirit.” We still have to accept that gift by our free-will choices and persevere in possessing it, i.e., abiding in right relationship with Jesus (John 6:55-56; 15:1-11).