Dear Parishioners,
I am often asked by children who my favorite saint is. It’s a difficult question to answer. Ask me each month and you might get a different answer. But if I had to choose, my favorite female saint is Saint Mary Magdalene and my favorite male saint is Saint Peter. Our Gospel scene this Sunday is one of the reasons why I appreciate Peter and can relate to him.
Jesus has been preaching and doing some ministry, and there is a huge crowd around him in Galilee. Peter and Andrew happen to be in the vicinity, going about their business. They were done fishing for the day, as the boat was docked. Jesus suddenly gets into their boat, disrupting them and asking them to go back out. And not only that, our Lord makes a further demand of them: “put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” So Peter and Andrew have to row far out onto the sea, tired from having fished the entire previous night (and demoralized for not catching anything), and then go about the laborious task of casting out the nets they had just finished cleaning. This is quite the imposition.
You have all been in similar situations before. You settle down for the evening only to get an unexpected call that you have to go pick up your child somewhere, or maybe there is an emergency and you need to head out. Or you spend an hour at the grocery store only to come home and realize you forgot something important and need to return. Or, more seriously, you went through chemotherapy, your cancer went into remission, and then a few years later it returns and you have to go through the whole trying experience again. You have dated and no relationship has worked out. And so on. We just want to say enough. We are tired. No more.
Peter felt similarly. To his credit, he first expresses this fatigue and frustration to the Lord: “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing.” Second, he doesn’t quit: “but at your command I will lower the nets.” These are two very important movements in our lives.
God often makes demands of us. Sure, there are commandments and rules around the faith, but I am thinking of a deeper kind of demand. Say, for instance, there is a restlessness in you. You are not sure what to do with your life. Perhaps you are middle-aged or retired and you feel called to something more. That is not just coming from you, from your restlessness. God has put that yearning for something more on your heart. That is a demand. Express your frustration to God: how you’ve been working hard and are tired and want to rest, how you’re not sure what he wants you to do, or how you know what you want to do but it isn’t working out. You’ll find, I hope, that the grace is in relating this to God, rather than receiving the answer or the solution.
The enemy, as St. Peter, says, is always “prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). One of the ways the enemy will work is to tempt you to quit. He puts hopelessness and negativity in you. Oh, nothing good will come of this; it will be the same old result; it is impossible and will never happen. These thoughts all discourage us and paralyze us. The make us feel far from God.
Peter was able to resist this negative way of thinking and cast out the nets. May he intercede for each one of us that we may become disciples and saints like he was, trusting in the Lord and persevering.
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This past Friday, February 7th, our parish school held its annual gala, Celebrate the Spirit. The theme of the evening was our school’s 100th birthday party. A special thank you to the co-chairs of the event, Megan Weber and Kelly Bontempo, as well as Mary Ploen, our Director of Advancement, and all those who made the evening a success.
A reminder there is no Family Mass this Sunday. Our next Family Mass will be Sunday, February 23rd at 10:30 a.m. in the Holy Family Chapel.
We are in the season of the Archdiocese Annual Catholic Appeal. Most of you have probably received mailings. Thank you for your contribution. Our goal this year is $152,876, which is 7% of our previous year’s offertory income. This annual campaign is very important for the Archdiocese to fund its ministries and other services, particularly for poorer schools and parishes. At the end of the month we will conduct the in-pew solicitation.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. James Wallace
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