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Gospel: Matthew 13: 47-53
Jesus said to the disciples:
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a net 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.
The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
“Do you understand all these things?”
They answered, “Yes.”
And he replied,
“Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven
is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom
both the new and the old.”
When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Fishing nets are designed to scoop up everything in their path. They do not discriminate.
Naturally, when such a net is hauled into a boat, it contains all sorts of things: flapping fish, muddy twigs, and debris.
It’s up to the fisherman – not the net – to decide what he wants to keep and what he doesn’t.
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In today’s Gospel, Jesus likens the Church to a fishing net.
You and I are meant to cast our arms far and wide, gathering as many people as possible into the Church. It’s not up to us to decide who does or does not ultimately belong; that power belongs to Christ, the Fisherman.
A power, he says, that will be used at the end of time.
Yet sometimes we can be tempted to lean into his role, to decide who’s in and who’s out; who belongs and who doesn’t.
“In my Father’s house, there are many dwelling places,” Jesus says. A place for you. A place for me. And, perhaps, a place for everyone gathered into the net of the Church.
The Lord will make that decision at the end of our lives.
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Our mission is to cast the net far and wide, to embrace our neighbors, and to allow the love of God – made manifest in us – to transform them into what God has created them to be: a disciple of Jesus Christ.
When I cast my net today, who might I help bring into the community the Church?
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Image credits: (1) What Should Be The Mission of the Church? GotQuestions (2) Salt Strong (3) DiscernIt