Thursday 17th week in ordinary time
"Mt 13:47-53"
"The kingdom of heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad. So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth...Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."
The Church works like a huge net, thrown into the sea and gathering all kinds of fish. She was entrusted to fishermen and they were commanded to go and catch 'all' men. They were not asked to select but to go, like a net, gathering all they could: just and sinners, wise and ignorant, Jews and gentiles, free men and slaves, rich and poor, powerful and weak... Everyone! The Church is not the Church of the rich, or the Church of the poor, but the Church of all mankind. Everyone has a soul that needs to be saved and brought back to Jesus.
The apostle can't be fussy when selecting the people he wants to bring to the shore where Jesus is waiting. The commandment was clear: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation..." to "everyone." The mission of the disciples of Jesus is to save all men, not to judge them. As St Teresa said, if we waste our time judging them we "don't have time to love them."
Christians are like the fibres woven into the net of the Church: all united to one another, we collect souls for God. Together, we are the net. Once St Mother Teresa received a letter from a man who wrote that, on the preceding afternoon, he planned to commit suicide. Then, quite by accident, he came across a biography of Mother Teresa. Bored and with nothing else to do, he started to read it. As he read, he gradually began to discover a new interest in life and, as he finished it, he decided to begin life anew. The Christian example of that woman, until then unknown to him, brought him back to God.
Holy Mary, Mother of the Church, may I also be an instrument to 'catch' souls for your Son.
