“Casting and Collecting” by Beth DeCristofaro
Memorial of Saint
Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Jesus said to the disciples: "The
Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of
every kind. When it is full, they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is
good into buckets. What is bad they throw away.
Thus it will be at the end of the age. (Matthew 13:47-49)
Thus it will be at the end of the age. (Matthew 13:47-49)
Piety
How lovely your dwelling,
O LORD of hosts!
My soul yearns and pines
for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and flesh cry out
for the living God.
As the sparrow finds a home
and the swallow a nest to settle her young,
My home is by your altars,
LORD of hosts, my king and my God!
Blessed are those who dwell in your house!
They never cease to praise you.
Blessed the man who finds refuge in you,
in their hearts are pilgrim roads.
(Psalm
84:2-6)
Study
My grandfather taught my siblings and me how
to fish off a small dock along the Aquia Creek.
Although always impatient, I did love watching the water’s movement and
the ducking of the bobber as perch and bluegills grabbed for the bait. But then there were times a slimy, wriggling
eel was reeled in and my grandfather was intolerant of my screaming and dancing
out of its way.
However those creatures, and the messy
preparation of the catch – for a skillet I always refused to taste – were part
of the endeavor. And so it is for the
Kingdom of Heaven, says Jesus. And so it
is for us, his brothers and sisters, as we participate in the building of his
kingdom. We members of his body, of his
church, are asked to spread the nets, reel in the catch and nurture
everybody. It is at the end of the age when
the sorting is done by the judge we serve and whose love we share. At times I might still feel like screaming or
dancing away when someone with whom I disagree or on whom I blame imagined
wrongs. But we are called to cast nets
wide not shut them, allowing God to throw away or retain at the end of the age.
Saint Alphonsus Liguori, renounced his noble
birth, instead casting his nets wide for homeless, abandoned, struggling and
questioning youth. He was known for his
charity and his pastoral approach to moral theology which “was noted for its
balance, avoiding both laxism and excessive rigor”[i].
He founded an order that “fought Jansenism, a very negative form of
spirituality which created an exaggerated sense of sin, which deterred people
from receiving the Eucharist.” By
founding chapels where they lived and worked, he cast wide nets to bring common
people, outsiders, the insignificant into closer communion with Jesus.
Action
In what
way might Jesus help me further open the net I cast as I live in praise of him,
finding my home in him?
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