Changing Our Job -Interview
The theme of the
first weeks of Ordinary time is discipleship—the following of him whom at
Christmas we found wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. In
today’s gospel from St. Mark, Jesus is passing by the are
fishers of fish. He calls them also and promises to make them fishers of men.
They, too, abandon their nets and follow Jesus (Mk
Poor
fishing in Jesus’ day
The parallel
passage from the gospel of St. Luke describes the event a little
differently. One day Jesus was on the
shores of He
got into Peter’his boat
and said to him, “You and your partners launch off into the deep and let down your
nets for a catch.” Peter protested a bit saying, “Master, we’ve worked hard all
night long and haven’t caught a thing.” Nevertheless,
he obeys. He launches off into the deep and drops his nets for a catch. Scripture
says, “They caught such a large number of fish that their nets were about to
break.” That miraculous catch has Peter
falling to his knees and exclaiming, “Depart from me, Oh Lord,
for I am a sinful man.” Despite the avowal of sinfulness, and perhaps precisely
because of it, Jesus says to Peter, “You’re just the man I want. From now on I
will make you a fisher of men” (Lk 5: 1-11). A fisher of men--that’s the New
Testament’s expression for those whose mission is to catch followers for Jesus.
On another
occasion, Peter and his partners were fishing all night long on the . Jesus
ordered them saying, “Cast your nets on the right
side of the boat, and then you will catch
something.” Again Peter obeyed Jesus.
Scripture says, “They made a miraculous catch of 153 large fish” (Jn 21:
1-19)
We chuckle a bit
at this “153 large fish.” We wonder who in the world took the time to count them
out so exactly and remember the number and write it down for us? And
for what reason in the first place?
Poor
fishing today
These days, too,
the fishing isn’t very good. We, the church, have a shortage crisis on our
hands. It’s not a shortage of fish. The faithful are still coming in great numbers
despite our painful scandal. It’s a shortage of priests—a shortage of fishers
of men. I look at the bulletin for St.
Michael the
We have the same
problem up north. In ”.
And aA
fine young priest with a good Polish name of Tim Kitzskey,
whom everyone likes, has to pony-back from one parish to another for Sunday
masses, like a circuit judge of early frontier days. The nicer the poor guy is and the more the
people love him, the sooner he’s going to burn out.
Jesus’
job-ib interview
After that
wonderful catch of 153 fish and the early morning breakfast around a warming
charcoal fire at early dawn, there follows a scene that’s particularly
meaningful for Catholics. Before the risen Lord commissions Peter to be the
supreme fisher of men in the church (i.e., before he commissions him to be the first
pope) he makes him undergo a job-ib interview.
It’s, indeed, a
strange- job
interview: it asks only one question but asks it three times. “Peter, do you
love me,?” Jesus
asks a first time?. “Yes,
Lord, I love you,” Peter relies. “Peter, do you love me?,”
he asks a second time?. Peter
responds, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” When Jesus asks the question a third time,
Peter is cut to the quick, for it reminds him of Jesus’ trial on Good Friday
when bystanders asked him three times, “Do you know this man,?”
and three times he denied ever knowing Jesus. At the third denial, scripture
says, “A rooster crowed, and Peter recalled what Jesus had foretold, `Before
the rooster crows, three times you will deny that you know me.’ Then Peter went
out and wept bitterly” (Jn
That job-ib interview
is so important to us Catholics that it is inscribed with gold mosaic letters
six feet tall, both in Latin and Greek, in the lofty heights of St. Peter’s
Basilica in Rome: “Petre, amas me?”
“Peter, do you love me?”
When Jesus finally assures himself that Peter is,
indeed, a fit candidate to be the supreme fisher of men in the church (i.e., to
be the first pope); and when
he finally assures himself that Peter is, indeed, a warm, loving,
caring human being, he confers the awesome job upon him. The conferral, like
the job-ib interview
itself, is also inscribed with gold mosaic letters six feet tall, both in Latin
and Greek, in the lofty heights of St. Peter’s: “Petre, pasce oves meas. Pasce agnos meos.” “Peter, feed my lambs.
Feed my sheep” (” (Jn
Changing
our job-ib interview
We, the church, have a crisis on our hands: a
shortage of fishers of men. But let us, the church, recall an oriental wisdom
that says a crisis is not only a moment of pain but also a moment of promise
and opportunity. God be praised for the crisis before us! Yes, God be praised
for the priest shortage! It’s forcing us to launch off into the deep and ask
questions which we would never think of asking if we were not in crisis.
Questions like, s Should
not we, the church, be launching off into the deep and changing our job-ib interview
for ministry? Should we not be bringing it into conformity with Jesus’ job-ib interview?
Jesus didn’t ask Peter three times, “Are you a celibate?
Are you a celibate? Are you a celibate?” Perhaps neither should we. Peter, we recall, was a married man. He had a
mother-in-law, and one day Jesus cured her of a fever (Mt ask Peter three times, “Are you a male? Are
you a male? Are you a male?” Perhaps neither should we. Indeed, Peter was a
male, a rough and tough fisherman. But that has nothing to do with ministry.
Jesus didn’t even
ask Peter three times, “Are you a saint? Are you a Ssaint?
Are you a saint?” Peter, indeed, wasn’t a saint. He was a sinner who denied his
Lord three times! Even before that, he was a sinner. When at Jesus’ command he and his partners
lowered their nets for a miraculous catch of 153 fish, Peter fell to his knees
and protested, “Depart from me, oh O Lord,
for I am a sinful man.” Who knows what sins of his Peter had in mind? That
avowal of sinfulness even pleases Jesus, and he says to Peter, “You’re just the
man I want. From now on I will make you a fisher of men” (Lk
We, the church, must
launch off into the deep and bring our current job-ib interview
for ministry into conformity with Jesus’. Our job-ib interview
must not center on celibacy or maleness or even sinless ness. It
must center first and foremost around love. We must ask the question of love
not once, not twice but three times just to make sure that we have before us a
fit candidate for ministry, namely, a warm
loving caring human being. Only when Jesus was finally assured that that’s
the kind of candidate he had in Peter—only then did he make him pastor over the
universal church.
Conclusion
Everyone winning
Here is a secret
that most of us already know: of such
candidates there is no
shortage. If there is a shortage, it’s man-made, like the energy shortage at
our gas pumps these days. There is no shortage of such candidates out there.
There is, in fact, a whole school of such candidates swimming in our pond—candidates
who would make good fishers of men—candidates waiting to be scooped up in our
nets and be harvested for ministry.
The problem is
that that school of fish is swimming on the right side of our boat, and we’re
fishing on the wrong side. In our
crisis, Jesus is ordering us to cast our nets on the right side. If we obey, like Peter and his partners, we’ll
make a grand haul of 153 fishers of men. And that’s more than enough to serve
all the needs of the people of God.
If
we, the church, obey Jesus’ fishing instructions, we all win. Healthy young men,
who want to minister but who also want to marry, will win. Women, too, who can
do just as good a job (and also just as bad a job) as men do, will also win. And those three holy women who had to join a
coalition with a funny name will also win: they’ll each get back their own
individual churches with their own names, and they’ll each have their own
priests again. That young priest on pony-back will also will win.
He’ll have help and won’t have to burn himself out before his time. Monsignor
Leo and I will win; we both will be able to retire before we’re ninety.