Gospel • MT 13:47-53
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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. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
“Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.” And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.
The parable of the dragnet is drawn from the ordinary experience of Jesus with his disciples, many of whom are fishermen. One common way of fishing in Galilee is to use a dragnet. It is pulled between two boats. By its nature the dragnet does not and cannot select or discriminate. It is bound to collect a great mixture of things.
Applying this parable to the Church, which is an instrument of gathering people for God’s Kingdom, we realize that it does not discriminate. Its doors are open to everyone: Good and bad, selfless and selfish, thoughtful and thoughtless. Thus, we find all sorts of people in the Church. Like individual Christians, the Church is both holy yet sinful (simul justus et peccator). This should not shock us.
Jesus continues his parable, asserting that ultimately there will be a final judgment, when “the angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous.”
Am I sometimes scandalized by the “human-yet-holy” in the Church? How can I be less judgmental of the weaker members of the Church?
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SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord 2020,” ST. PAULS Philippines, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 895-9701; Fax 895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.
