We are the Fishers of People for the Lord to Build the Kingdom on Earth!

January 25 was the feast day of the Conversion of St. Paul of Tarsus.  This year (2015), which is Year B in the Liturgical Calendar, this feast day coincided with the 3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. For this reason,  the feast of the Conversion of Paul was superseded.

Following January 25, on January 26, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the Church celebrates the feast day of St. Timothy and St. Titus, who were important assistants to Paul.

It is no coincidence that feast days of Paul’s conversion, Timothy and Titus, fall on the week to contemplate on what it means to follow Jesus as his “fishers of people”, which is a key theme from the 3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time of this year (Year B).  In this article, I would like to reflect on how our mission identity as Lord’s fishers of people are related to the conversion of Paul, Timothy, and Titus.

****

When Jesus was about 30 year-old, he came out of obscurity and met his cousin, John the Baptist, by the Jordan River to be baptized. His baptism marked the commissioning of Jesus to embark on his ministry, which is his mission, given by the Father, who loved him and blessed his mission, saying, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased”(Mark 1:11). He was also anointed by the Holy Spirit as he came out of the river water (Mark 1:10), prior to the Father’s blessing.  This reminds that the full presence of the three Godheads of Trinity as Jesus began his mission.

Jesus’ baptism was followed by his 40-day retreat in the desert, as taken by the Spirit to ensure his is strong enough to complete his mission, as he successfully fended off series of temptations from Satan (Mark 1:12-13).

These events –  Jesus’ baptism and fasting retreat in the desert (Mark 1:9-13) – give meaning to the Sacrament of Baptism and the Sacrament of Confirmation, two important formation Sacraments to us.

Jesus was ready and strong enough to start his mission. But, he waited until the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Mark 1:14-15), who was preparing the way of the coming of Jesus for his salvific mission (Mark 1:1-8).

What marks the beginning of Jesus mission is that he recruited his Apostles by the Sea of Galilee, where the Jordan River’s water that baptized Jesus and others, flows in and out.

According to Mark,  in making the very first batch of the Apostles, Jesus promised to make Peter and his brother, Andrew, two fishermen of Galilee, “fishers of people” (Mark 1:18), as they followed him.  This marks the beginning of Jesus’ 3-year public ministry for our salvation.  This is also how Jesus himself began “fishing” as “fisher of people”.

As Peter, then called Simon, and his brother, Andrew, were caught in Jesus’ “fishing net” by giving up their own fishing nets, Jesus continued on catching more to build his “fishing enterprise”, to save those whom he and his disciple caught, as the Gospels describe.  Furthermore, the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s Epistles describe, Paul, who used to catch people to kill, while the disciples of Jesus were catching to save, after Jesus’ Ascension, also became another fisher of people to save, joining the original fishers of men for Jesus. This is called the conversion of Paul – changing himself from a fisher to kill into a fisher to save. Then, Paul ended up becoming a “fisher” , who caught most, as his “ fishing “ journey went far beyond  where other “fishers of men” were working. Along Paul’s great “fishing expedition”, he also made others his companion “fishermen”.  The two of them were Timothy and Titus.

***

An important take-home message from the 3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel reading – Mark 1:14-20 – is that we are called to serve the Lord as his” fishermen”. In fact, not to catch fish from the water but to catch fellow humans with the net of Jesus’ teaching – the Word of God. 

Following the Christmastide, which ended with the Sunday after Epiphany, the Sunday to commemorate the Baptism of the Lord, the scriptures from first two Sundays in the Ordinary Time (1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19; John 1:35-42 – First reading and Gospel reading for the 2^nd Sunday; Jonah 3:1-5,10; Mark 1:14-20 – First reading and Gospel reading for the 3^rd Sunday)  are about our callings and our need to respond to the callings.

The Baptism of the Lord, in fact reminds of us the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, which is his way of responding to his own calling by the Father.  This also calls our attention to the meaning of our own baptism, signaling that we, too, are called and need to respond to our respective. By virtue of sacramental baptism, we are also called to embark on ministry, as Jesus began with his own baptism.  That is why on these two Sundays, following the Baptism of the Lord, the scriptures focused on calling – challenging us to reflect our own callings.

Now, to build on the theme of calling, the scriptures from the 3^rd Sunday teach us that our callings entail our mission, and it is to be “fishers of people” (Mark 1:17).

What does Jesus mean, calling us to serve as “fishers of people”?

In contemplating what it means to be “fishers of people”, it is helpful to think of what it takes to fish and what it takes to follow Christ and minister to others.

Being “fishers of people” refers to making disciples, as Jesus himself made Andrew, Peter, James, and John to follow him as fishers of men, to start his mission together, by the Sea of Galilee.

Upon recruiting his fellow fishers of people, “converting” ordinary fishermen of Galilee, who used to catch fish, into a new batch of different kind of fishermen – fishers of people, Jesus taught them “fishing” – how they work as “fishers of people”, through his own example, for the next 3 years, until his Ascension. For example, Jesus showed how he can “catch” a very difficult “fish” – how he can “fish” a difficult person  - , when he converted the Samaritan woman by the Jacob’s Well (John 4:1-40).

After teaching what it takes to follow him as fisher of men for about 3 years, as written in the Gospels, just before  his Ascension to return to heaven, Jesus left these words to the disciples, stating the mission as the fishers of people, beyond Jesus’ physical presence on earth:

 "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover" (Mark 16:16-19).

Based on the above Mark’s writing, Matthew also tells as below:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).

Therefore, serving the Lord as “fishers of people” means that we go all over the world to share the joy of the Gospel with people and do whatever that is necessary to take care of those who receive and accept the Gospel.  This follow-up includes baptizing, catechizing, and facilitating charismatization. Those who serve the Lord as priestly fishers of people, need to pastor the people we catch to build and maintain the Church.

****

What follows the Gospels in the New Testament is the Acts of the Apostles, written by Luke.  In the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples worked as fishers of men after Jesus’ Ascension to build the Church – namely, to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven.

This leads to understand how the Conversion of Paul fits in the thematic context of the “fishers of people”, because the Conversion of Paul is described in Acts 9. In the rest of Acts and Paul’s Epistles, we can find in more detail about how Paul, upon his conversion, served as a fisher of people for the Lord.

Along with his work as a Lord’s fisherman to catch people for him, Paul made Timothy and Titus as his disciples – fellow fishermen, to catch more people to build more churches.

As written in Acts 16, during his second mission trip, Paul met Timothy in Lystra. As Andrew, Peter, James, and John, followed Jesus and became his fishers of people in Galilee, Timothy also became a Lord’s fisherman, as he was caught by another Lord’s fisherman, Paul.

Though the Acts of the Apostles does not mention how Paul met Titus, Paul himself mentions him as his companion to Jerusalem, fourteen years after his conversion and meeting with Peter  (Galatians 2:1-5). Paul took Titus to Jerusalem in response to respond to a problematic teaching on circumcision by the Pharisees.

Though Timothy and Titus were not the only accompanying assistants to Paul’s “fishing” journeys, as these include Barnabas,  Mark, Luke, and Aquila and Pricilla, Timothy and Titus were the only ones that Paul wrote his personal pastoral letters to, as in the New Testament cannon. Therefore, even though they were not with Paul at the same time, we acknowledge these two “fishers of people”, who traveled with Paul, together on January 26, following the feast day of Paul’s conversion.

To Paul, obviously, these two “fishers of men”, Timothy and Titus, were important enough not only to personally write pastoral letters to instruct their “fishing” and “taking care of their catches”, but also to make them bishops of new churches, built through his mission (“fishing” journeys.  With Paul’s blessings, Timothy became the first bishop of the church in Ephesus (1 Timothy 1), and Titus became the first bishop of the church in Crete (Titus 1).

Reading Paul’s pastoral letters to Timothy (2 letters) and Titus tells us how we, too, as Lord’s “fishers of people” should take care of our “catches”, while the Gospels tells how Jesus taught the “fishing” to the Apostles and the Acts of the Apostles describes how the Apostles actually practiced the “fishing” that Jesus taught them in the Gospels and how their “fishing enterprise” – ministry and the Church – had grown during the first century.

*****

Conversion of our own hearts is necessary for us to be better “fishers of people”.  It is a necessary condition for us to strive to be better “fishers of people” for the Lord. We take a lesson on this from Jonah and Paul.  It is no coincidence that Jonah was mentioned on the 3^rd Sunday, which also coincided with and superseded the feast day of Paul’s conversion, this year (2015, Year B). After all, we would not know Timothy and Titus as notable bishops, unless there was Paul’s conversion.  In other words, there would not be the feast day of St. Timothy and St. Titus (January 26), unless there is the feast day of the conversion of St. Paul (January 25). And,  the conversion of St. Paul made him a “fisher of people” for the Lord, and making Timothy and Titus as his catch and his fellow “fishers of people” for the Lord.

As in the First Reading for the 3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B), Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Jonah would not have been a good “fisher of people” in Nineveh of Assyria, unless he himself had gone through his own conversion.  Jonah's heart was not with God, when God called him to go “fishing” to Nineveh.  In his defiance to God’s call, Jonah ran away. But, the “fishing net” of God came upon him as a big fish, which swallowed him into its guts, until Jonah repented and converted his heart to obey God.  When he came out of the big fish, Jonah was ready to go “fishing” in Nineveh to save people there, as called by God.

As the Acts of the Apostles, its chapter 9 on, tells, Paul would not have been such a great “fisher of people” for the Lord, unless he had gone through his conversion.  The effects of Paul’s conversion was not just opening his eyes, after being blind from a lightening, but also and more importantly, opening his heart wide open.  The openness of Paul’s heart is a good example of a circumcision of heart (Deuteronomy 10:16), which he himself emphasized in his “fishing”, as he cast his “net” widely to the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, in the Greco-Roman world (Romans 2:25-29). This way, an old Jewish obsession with circumcision did not become an obstacle of “fishing” to catch the Gentiles for Paul and his assistant “fishermen”, such as Timothy and Titus.

Just as there are good fishermen and bad fishermen, not all “fishers for men” are the same.

For example, Paul, then called Saul, used to be a terrible “fisher of people”, because he was aggressively catching Christians to kill them. He was much feared. He was also in the authority to kill the catches his associates “fishers of people” brought (Acts 8:1). But, through his conversion, Paul was no longer such a bad “fisherman” any more.

When Jesus said, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of people" (Mark 1:17), he meant that we are to become good fishermen, who catch people with the net of God’s word to put them into the life-giving container, which is the Kingdom of Heaven. The purpose of “fishing” as Jesus calls us to is not to kill our catches, as Paul and his men used to do, but to save our catches into the Kingdom.

On his way to Damascus, to bring Christians caught by his net to be executed in Jerusalem, Paul was struck by a lightening (Acts 9:3; 22:6) and became blind for three days. During that time, he heard Jesus calling him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”(Acts 9:4; 22:7). Furthermore, he heard Jesus saying, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do”(Acts 9:5-6;22:10). To this command of Jesus, Paul said, “Yes, Lord” (Acts 9:10).

This was Paul’s conversion. His conversion was prompted by his encounter with Christ, upon being struck by a lightening. This was like how the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola began, as it began when he was struggling with a near-fatal war injury, upon being hit by a French army’s cannon ball. What was a cannon ball to Ignatius was what was a lightening to Paul.

As the Acts of the Apostle chronicles, Paul, after he became a fisher of men for the Lord, not only continue to catch more and more people but also built churches and trained his assistants, such as Timothy and Titus to pastor the churches he and his assistants built. These churches are where “fishers of people”  keep their catches to be fed not only by the Word of God but also by the Body of Christ. This is also where the catches are placed to be saved.  Paul needed to build more churches as he and his assistants caught more and more people in their nets for the Lord.

As God called Andrew and his brother, Peter, to go “fishing “ to catch people , – as God changed Paul from being a fisher of people to kill for those who killed Jesus to a fisher of people for the Lord to save people, and as Paul trained his assistants, such as Timothy and Titus, to be better “ fishers of people” and to take care of vessels that their catches were kept, we, too, are called to go “fishing” to catch people and put them into the ever-expanding place, called the Church, which is a prototype of the Kingdom, as in the ecclesiological view of St. Thomas Aquinas .

Today, we are also called to go “fishing”, following the way Jesus “fished”, as Peter, Andrew, James, and John, did, as Paul did upon his conversion. It is to build the Church through evangelization and to build the healthy soul of our catches through our works of mercy (spiritual and corporal), including catechizing them. This way, we facilitate the charismatization for them so that, they, too, may grow to be our fellow ‘fishers of people” to further build the Church, which is to become the Kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.  For this reason, Jesus said:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).

Now, I hear a priest, who is a lead "fisherman", saying, “Mass is ended. Go fishing! And, bring your catch here to feed and save!!”   Amen! & Thanks be to God!