22nd Week in Ordinary Time : Thursday 3rd September 2020

John Buchen once wrote: “The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive, but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.” As disciples of Jesus we are called to spend our lives in pursuit of our own personal sanctity! We cannot obtain it as a product of our labours, but when we submit to the commands of Jesus, the results are more significant than our imagining.

Our God delights in making the impossible possible — in changing peoples’ lives in ways which no one could ever predict or expect. Unreliable Peter, the fisherman, probably did not ever imagine himself as Saint Peter the bishop of Rome, but look who he became! Are we willing to allow God to remake us? Will we set aside our expertise and allow God to instruct us in the paths we should follow?

By our baptism, each of us has been called to be a fisher of men and women. As disciples of Christ, we are called to hand on what we have received. God comes to us in the midst of our busy, burdened lives. Whether we are with IT technology, politics, fishing, construction, community service, teaching, learning, rearing children or whatever our current occupation maybe, God calls us to reassert our true vocation and unite ourselves to God in the midst of the practice of our occupation and vacations. God calls us to preach the Good News, with words if we must, but more convincingly with our lives.

Lord, with Your grace, may we be fishers of men and women and attain our life’s true goal: union with God.