I Will Make You Fishers of Men
( and Women)
Whenever I hear this gospel proclaimed, I still ask God “Really? You have got to be kidding me!!!” Yet this is true. We have been asked to pray that we become his instruments. We are God’s hands and voices at work in our modern world. By first having God in our hearts and then sharing the good news, we indeed become his fishers of souls. What a tremendous honor! First, we have to go though a process known as “discernment” or as it applies to God “discernment of the spirit.” In today’s gospel we have the professional fishermen deciding to trust Jesus, a teacher and healer. I do not believe that all of the Apostles were convinced that He was indeed the Son of God working for their welfare in their midst. Regrettably, that is still true today, as people “look “ for Jesus, not recognizing that He is ever-present with each of us.
Discernment is defined as “the activity of determining the value and quality of a certain subject or event, particularly the activity of going past the mere perception of something and making detailed judgments about that thing; the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure; skill in discerning. an act of perceiving or discerning something. I was fortunate while at Creighton University to take a course on “Discernment of Spirits “ , also known as determining what the Holy spirit wants for us in our lives. My teacher, Sr. Maureen Conroy, RSM, also wrote a book entitled “The Discerning Heart: Discovering a Personal God”. The entire program taught that what is needed for people of faith is a discerning heart. The reason for this was proposed that we analyze with the brain using all of our senses, but that we decide with our heart, our sense of what is best for us and for those around us.
Sr. Maureen Conroy writes: “ Developing a discerning heart means being attentive to the movements and counter-movements within, which is a result of God’s intimate involvement with us. It is about discovering a personal god who embraces both our darkness and our light because in God’s eyes darkness and light… It means striving to find God in all the realities of our life --the inner dimensions of our mind, heart, spirit, imagination and memory and the outer aspects of our relationships, community, work, leisure, and world….A basic tenet is that when we are discovering God in a personal way, we spontaneously experience movement toward and away from God. The development of a discerning heart is about sifting through these interior movements so that we can choose those movements that ultimately bring us into a deeper union with God and reject those that draw us away from God’s loving heart.”
Our task then, is to find Jesus at work in every aspect of our lives – in our joys, in our times of sadness and challenge. The consequence of developing a discerning heart goes beyond mere self- improvement, but rather, enables us to become a fisher of souls through our example!
Fr. Mike
