HOMILY FOR SOLEMN MASS FOR “WORD OF GOD SUNDAY”5TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C)
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL SYDNEY, 9 FEBRUARY 2025
It’s an old fishing trick. In the days leading up to an expedition, experienced anglers cast a handful of bran or other roughage on the waters where they intend to go fishing later. Bran effects fish much as it does people. As a result, when the fishers return a few days later, the fish have been cleaned out and are hungry, ready to take whatever bait now appears before them.
In today’s Gospel (Lk 5:1-11), a crowd presses around Jesus so expectantly He’s afraid of crowd-crush and has to move offshore. They too are hungry for the Word of God He speaks and is. But what primed them for this? Well, for one thing, they were Jews. Israel had long awaited a messiah, anointed to deliver them from subjugation and restore their glory as the Chosen People. While they waited, God sent His prophets for encouragement. In our first reading young Isaiah has a vision of the heavenly host singing the Sanctus, “Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.” Terrified that he had glimpsed something he shouldn’t, he cries out “Woe is me, unclean, unworthy, a man of sullied lips”. But he is purged of his sin so he might be sent to Israel as a voice for God (Isa 6:1-8).
But it’s not just who the crowd were as Jews that made them so expectant, but what they were: as human beings they were hardwired for union with God. The 16th-century mystic, St John of the Cross, said every person has a God-shaped cavern within, a longing for the ultimate and eternal.[1] Many centuries before, the great Augustine wrote in his Confessions about the restlessness of the soul until it rests in God.[2] And so we are all the expectant fish, crowded around the boat, seeking encounter with the Word ofGod who isGod.
How does Jesus respond? He gets into Simon’s boat and puts out a little from the shore. The barque of Peter is, of course, a metaphor for the Church. Before their eyes Jesus is founding a Church He will entrust to Peter as captain (Mt 16: 17-19; Lk 22:31-32; Jn 21:15-19). After satisfying the hungry crowd, it’s the apostles’ turn. He tells Simon to “Put out into the deep and pay out your nets for a catch.” It’s a rallying cry for missionary discipleship that calls us to this day…
Though they’re still getting to know Him, the lads are so struck by Jesus that they promptly do as He asks. The result is an enormous haul of fish, so great the nets began to tear. As with the wine at Cana and the loaves on the hills, it’s a super-abundant sign. The message is clear: trust in God with all your heart, put out into the deep with Him, and He will surprise you beyond your wildest expectations. On Pentecost Day, when the apostles first preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, “about three thousand were added to their number” in one day (Acts 2:5-11,37,41). Within a few centuries they’d converted the whole Roman empire, and today they number 2.4 billion Christians!
Not that our seaside preaching is always as successful as Christ’s or Peter’s. My Franciscan name-saint, Anthony of Padua, was a famed preacher. Yet he encountered such obduracy among the people of Rimini that he resorted to preaching to the fish instead. At the mouth of the Marecchia River the fish leapt out of the water and formed ranks like our choir to hear the sermon. A 17th-century Augustinian, Abraham of St Clare, retold the romance as a poem that Gustav Mahler later set as a song.[3] The open-mouthed carp, pugnacious pike and goodly eels all surface to hear the pious preacher. The crabs and turtles, noble finned and common, great and small all lift their heads and flick their tails, declaring they’ve never heard such a good sermon! But once it’s all over, the cynical Austin friar records in his verse, they all return, the pike to their thieving, eels to their canoodling, carp to gorging, forgetting every word of the homily and behaving exactly as they had before. So much for great preaching!
For if God’s grace plays an outsized role in the proclamation of the Word, still it requires the cooperation of preachers and hearers. Though it’s God who grows the Church from mustard seed to great bush for all the birds (Mt 13:31-32 et par.), He asks us to be the fishers, gardeners or disciple-makers in this project. Our instinctive response like Isaiah and Peter might be to drop to our knees and plead “Depart from me Lord: I’m just a sinful man.” But then, sinful men (and women) are the only kind, and it’s precisely to build them into one school, flock or communion that the Word became flesh, the Creator creature, God the Redeemer of sinful people. He gave us freedom, intelligence and emotions so we might hunger for the good, the true and the beautiful, above all for God Himself. He gifted us also so we might play our part in satisfying that hunger, joining Isaiah, Peter and Paul. If God can use the likes of them for His good purposes, He can make us into His people-fishers too.
If it’s bran or bread we are asked to cast upon the waters (cf. Eccles 11:1), then that’s what we should throw: not barbecue flavoured corn chips, or double bacon cheeseburgers, or anything else that might attract the fish but never sustain them, satisfy immediate craving but harm them in the process. As Paul who suffered no want of self-confidence about his own giftedness and mission said today, what matters in the end is not who is preaching but what is preached (1Cor 15:1-11): not attractive but superficial stuff, nor sophisticated but ultimately unhelpful, but the kerygma, the basic Gospel, “what I received from the Lord and in turn pass on to you”.
So on this “Word of God Sunday” we are reminded that each of us has a responsibility to share the Gospel with others. You might do it as a parent or friend in your conversation, or as a simple witness to others of a good Christian life. You might do it as a Catholic school teacher or as a catechist in a state school. You might do it as a work colleague, parish RCIA team-member, or even as a chorister. Preparing seeds of the Word of God by savouring them and then casting them abroad by repeating them in word or even song is a great place to start. In pondering the history of salvation on the sacred page, we contemplate God’s love for us sung at every moment from the genesis of time to its end. In getting to know the Bible more intimately, we get to know its divine author and His plan for us. In letting the words seep into our hearts, imaginations and memories, the Word takes flesh in us and we learn how to live as sons and daughters of God.
So go, dear friends, and cast your nets into the deeps of Biblical wisdom and be prepared to be surprised by the God whose power knows no bounds.
[1] St John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, stanza 3 and commentary 18-22,26-27,68-71,77,80. He uses the cavern metaphor differently in Spiritual Canticle of the Soul, stanza 37 and commentary 2, 5.
[2] Augustine, Confessions, 1.1
[3] Johann Ulrick Megerle of Kreenheinstetten, Germany (1644-1709), took the name Abraham of St Clare OSA in religion: his poem “St Anthony’s Sermon to the Fishes” can be found at https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=4462. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) set the song to music in his song collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1905). It is performed by Walter Berry (conducted by Leonard Bernstein) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egx-oEiN9Dk. See Marianne Wright, “Saint Anthony’s fish sermon,” Plough 16 June 2014.
INTRODUCTION TO SOLEMN MASS FOR “WORD OF GOD SUNDAY”
5TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C), ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL SYDNEY, 9 FEBRUARY 2025
Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney for the Solemn Mass of fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today in Australia we celebrate Word of God Sunday, an observance instituted by Pope Francis in 2019 to foster greater appreciation for the Holy Scriptures, for the unique way God reveals Himself to us through them, and for the gift they are for inspiring our prayer, informing our faith, and guiding our lives.
This morning, I have the joy of admitting three young choristers to the St Mary’s Cathedral Choir: Kenneth Jo, Lucas Kao and Franklin Xie. I welcome their families and fellow choristers.
To everyone present, including visitors and more regulars, a very warm welcome!
