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Fr. Dale’s Homily


T5th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle C)

February 8-9, 2025

Gospel:  Luke 5:1-11

One day, several teen-age girls were sitting in a movie theatre waiting for the flick to start.  They were watching and rating the young guys that walked down the aisle to their seats.  For quite some time they saw no one to measure up to their VERY strict requirements.  Well, suddenly they all perked up at the same time.  Their dream boy had appeared.  With one voice they uttered a breathy exclamation, “What-a-catch!”

Catching things is a part of our lives.  Fishers catch fish.  Ball players catch balls.  All of us catch colds.  And some of us catch people.   Catching people is a different kind of catching than the other kinds.  Catching people is about winning them over, opening their eyes to something they have not seen before, bringing them to accept something OR someone new.  The Gospel today is about catching women and men and children for God’s kingdom…

In a word, The Gospel is a fish story.  As we heard, the fishermen-disciples had been out fishing all night; a good time for fishing I am told.  They were unsuccessful in catching ANYTHING.  Now, they were on shore cleaning nets, getting ready for another night of work.  Jesus comes along followed by a HUGE crowd hungry to hear Him.  So, he asked Peter to pull out from shore knowing that His Voice would carry across the water as it does when we are at our lake houses.  After He finishes, he asked Peter to go further from the shore and drop the nets.  Peter squawks.  But, because he respects and accepts Jesus, he sails and throws over the nets.  Much to the surprise of the experts, they make an enormous catch.

But Jesus makes a bigger catch.  He catches Peter and his fisher friends.  Peter was impressed with what he had heard about Jesus.  Watching Him in action, Peter could see that Jesus was a holy man, one sent from God.

Conscious of his own weaknesses, Peter feels he doesn’t belong in the company of Jesus – like a fish out of water.  In His gentle way, Jesus puts Peter at ease… ‘don’t be afraid!  You can do it.’  Jesus makes him a new kind of fisherman… catching people to do things they think they cannot do OR have the time to do.  This is the kind of fisherman that I know I have been for 43 years… asking people to do things they otherwise think they cannot do… and I know they can…

Friends,

Jesus asks YOU to do things that you think you cannot do.

Somewhere, sometime in your life, Jesus has caught you.  We may have struggled against the hook, not quite accepting Jesus or His teachings or what He needs to get done…

Perhaps you slipped the hook.  Maybe abandoning Jesus through being bullheaded or being indifferent or wanting to be “just left alone”…   

You are here today and caught in different degrees by this great fisher of women, men and children.  Jesus invites you to go and catch other people and introduce them to Good News by reminding you that we are all stewards of creation and to be good disciples and help the parish community in some, not all, of our time, our talent, our treasure.   

One of the real virtues of fishers is PATIENCEGood fishers can sit for hours and wait for a bite.  Maybe, just maybe, Jesus had to be patient to catch youHis patient waiting for you is an example for you to be patient with self as Jesus tries to land you a little bit more each day, and to be patient as you try to catch others for the Kingdom of God.

As we gather around the Table of the Lord, we are reminded of those times when Jesus sat by the shore with his disciples and ate with them.  How He must have loved those rugged, unruly men.  He loved them to the degree that He entrusted to them His dream where people would love God and each other.  He comes to us in this Eucharist so as to make the dream come true… through you!  Jesus says to Himself when you volunteer (or allow yourself to be volunteered) in a ministry of the parish,

“What a catch!”