Homily: Seventeenth Thursday of Ordinary Time

Seventeenth Thursday of Ordinary Time (Mt. 13:47-53) “God Does the Sorting”

Jesus was wonderful preacher who could connect with his audience. What a natural thing to talk about fishing when speaking to fishermen. The reality is that most of us are not fishermen. We especially do not know about fishing in first century Palestine.

One of the methods of fishing in the time of Jesus was that people would use a drag net. A net would be stretched between two boats that would drag along the bottom of a lake. The boats would go out a certain distance from shore where they would drop the net. Then they would row towards the shore dragging the net.

The fisting net would catch anything in its path. When the boats got to shore the fishermen would pull the net to shore. The edible fish would be saved in buckets. The other fish would either be cast on the shore or would be released back into the sea. Other inanimate objects might be dragged to shore as well, and these would be sorted. Jesus said that this was what the Kingdom of God is like.

The image could be used as a metaphor for all the spiritual things we learn in our Christian lives. Some of them might seem inspiring and useful to us. Other knowledge might seem pretty worthless. We must determine what resonates with us and hold onto it.

Another way to interpret the parable is in terms of church. The church is an expression of the Kingdom Jesus preached about. There are those who would say that we should have a pure church. Everyone is caught up in the net the church casts, but we need to discard members who don’t offer anything to the life of the church.

There is another opinion which is that the church should be a mixed bag of people some of whom are talented contributing members and others who seem to be along for the ride. It is up to us to exclude or include members. That will be sorted out by God at the end of time.

Reflection Questions:

1.    Do I believe in a pure church? What does that mean to me?

2.   Should our church cast a wide net? What does that mean?

 Dear Parishioners,

           We plan on bringing the cross that is hanging on the wall in the St. Francis Chapel into the church and mounting it on the wall where the Blessings Gift Shop used to be. This is the original cross that hung in the 1st worship space that Sacred Heart had. This building sat next to the Lee Center. It was torn down in the 1960’s. It was half school building and half multipurpose space.

          The cross is a unique piece of art that was carved by Camille Wegge. Camille Wegge was Fr. Culemans’ brother-in-law. He was a wood carver who lived in Moline. He sent pieces all over the world. Many of them were in U.S. government buildings. He even had pieces that were in the Supreme Court building.

          This cross is an important part of Sacred Heart’s history. We would like to allow more people to enjoy it.

          May Our Lady pray for us,

          Fr. Mark