“Fishers of Puns” by Leonidas Aliaga, Fiat Ventures
“Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never gone fishing and therefore I’ve never caught anything. Interestingly though, the first few Apostles who were professional fishermen never seem to be catching anything either. Any time they do catch any fish in the Gospels, Jesus is always involved somehow. It’s a wonder their business was surviving!
In this week’s Gospel, we hear the call of Peter, Andrew, James, and John. And since Jesus loves memorable one-liners, he tells them that from now on, they’ll be fishers of men. And after they groaned at the pun, they said, “Okay Jesus, I see what you did there. Well played. We’ll follow you!”
This Gospel is reflective to the calling that we all have. From our baptism, we are called to be missionaries. We are called to live our faith. We have been chosen to do many things for God’s glory! For me as a Youth Minister, my goal is to bring Christ to teens. I guess that makes me…a fisher of teens? I don’t know, that one doesn’t sound as good on a t-shirt.
Imagine the sacrifice of James and John leaving their father in the boat. Zebedee must have been like, “uh where you guys going…?” Sometimes being a disciple takes real sacrifice, but God always rewards us for our work for the Kingdom.
I graduated from a Masters Social Work program in May. I would have probably said I was an experienced fisher of case management! Then as I started looking for a job, I started to pray about it and ask God for his thoughts on the subject. Then something told me to look into youth ministry. Sure enough, this was God’s plan since it all panned out, and with perfect timing, I might add. Sometimes when God speaks, he speaks so clearly that there’s no doubt he’s calling you by name.
As disciples on a mission, God has allowed us to be instruments to place His seeds of love in all we meet. Our calling is not too different from the apostles. We know we are called to be saints and we can do this by giving it all we have every day. Sometimes we may cast out our net and may not catch anything, and sometimes we may think something we do to reach out to someone is a long shot, and we are surprised with a huge catch! Either way, all Jesus asks us to do is to cast out the net and he’ll take care of the rest.
Don’t be afraid to cast your net with Our Lord. Then sit back and watch all the fish jump into your nets.
