THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
Casting and mending
Jesus’ new team takes shape. Four men, Peter, Andrew, James and John are selected. Ordinary people doing their everyday chores are now called to do extraordinary things. Fishermen casting and mending nets are summoned to become fishers of men and women. From a life bringing fish to shore they are now asked to bring people to God. I wonder why Jesus chose fishermen to be His first disciples? Could it have been something to do with the qualities of patience and persistence that are essential to the work of the fisherman? The good fisherman never gives up. The persistent fisherman tends to catch more and bigger fish. The patient fisherman will always find an imaginative way. As with the fishermen so it is with disciples of every age. Today as ever the disciple must find ways of casting out to those who have never heard the Good News and, increasingly, to those who have slipped from the net. The disciple must mend too. The more progress we make in our world the more brokenness lies all around. The casting and mending of the nets represent the Church’s unchanging twofold task of maintenance and mission, a task that demands today as never before the qualities of the fisherman – patience and persistence.