L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

TO BECOME THE REAL FISHERS OF MEN, MUST BE THE FIRST REAL MEN

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Throw networks means getting away from the shore and take in the immensity. In order to draw men, first of all we must be real men, legitimate children of a God who became true man in all respects and by whom we freely and lovingly let ourselves be caught, to thus become true fishers of men.

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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Immensity, Roman work of painter Anna Boschini [Vitarte, WHO]

The page of the Lucan Gospel offered by this 5th Sunday of ordinary time [text of the liturgy of the word, WHO], first of all it reminds us of the mystery of an inseparable reality: the Jesus of history, real man, and the Christ of faith, true God, expression of the mystery of the nature of the Redeemer who is one in his person and one in the Trinity, because every action of encounter between the true God and the true man with humanity, it is an action of grace of the Trinity in our history, in our present being and in our future becoming, single and collective.

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The man Jesus also teaches us the art of preaching, which is the ability to communicate in order to seek and live true communion. The historical Jesus demonstrates this, able to discuss already as a teenager with the doctors of the Temple [cf. LC 2, 41-50] who were amazed and wondered where he got this wisdom. Approached Jesus that with simple words, at times disarming - within which, however, the pillars of our faith are contained - he speaks and refers to the children and the simple who listen to him, who understand him and above all who follow him [cf. MC 10, 13-14; Mt 18, 3-4; Mt 18,6].

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If whoever preaches the Gospel does not sow and does not reap, if he does not cast the empty nets to throw them on the boat full, things are in these terms: or has landed in a city of totally dry hearts from which it is good to proceed further by shaking the dust from one's sandals,^[3] or he is a misunderstood prophet destined for more or less white martyrdom, or he's a bad preacher who doesn't practice what he preaches.

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The historical Jesus, Jew among the Jews, that in his perfect human nature he was the son of an ancient culture - the Jewish one - made up of symbols and images; in a Judea that at the time had also assimilated the wealth of Greek and then Roman symbols and images, to make his preaching effective he addresses the people speaking in parables. And as we know the parable - that is, the story - is a symbol, beyond which there is a human message, morale, ethical and spiritual.

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But beware of a pitfall that is always lurking: symbolic is language, not the God incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Jesus is a human and divine reality narrated through the Gospels which are also historical sources, put together by direct or immediately directed eyewitnesses. The divine mystery of the incarnate Christ of faith is contained in the historicity of Jesus who speaks in parables or allegories, lived, dead and risen.

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Jesus walking over the waters of the Sea of ​​Galilee [cf. MC 6, 45-52; Mt 14,22-32], who performs the miracle of wine at Cana [cf. GV 2,1-11] who multiplies the loaves and fishes [cf. Mt 15,29-37], who heals the sick and who raises Lazarus [cf. GV 11, 35-44]; but especially, Jesus who on the third day rises from the dead, it is not a set of symbols and allegories to be interpreted with the criteria of modern theology, because all of this is historical and real. And only in the face of this real historicity, we can then proceed with spiritual criteria and with theological readings, not vice versa. In fact, if Jesus existed only in the past or instead he also exists in the present, this all depends on his resurrection [cf. Antonio Maria Sicari, Travel In the Gospel, Jaca Boock, pag 270].

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In today's Gospel proclamation an original story was not told but a real fact, beyond which there is the symbol. It is not a play on words but a correct use of words in the delicate vineyard of the mystery of faith. Through the earthly life of Jesus the parable is born from his concrete and palpitating human reality, or the metaphor, which is an effective communication tool. Thinking instead of from the metaphor, or whatever you want from the fairy tale, the tender fairytale idea of ​​a Jesus is born to be interpreted within purely spiritual and theological categories, it is a thought which, however widespread, remains dangerously non-Christian, definitely not Catholic.

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That day Jesus actually got into Simon's boat, inviting him and the other fishermen to put out to sea and cast their nets, and fulfilling his request, Simon really replied that they had tried in vain to fish all night without catching anything, finally saying: "At your word I will cast the nets", thus making a free act of faith.

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What is the spiritual challenge of this parable inserted into a real fact? First of all, Jesus invites Simon to leave the shore to go out to sea, moving away from that shore strewn with the shells of our limits, of our obvious lack of charity. Throw networks means getting away from the shore and take in the immensity, finally to bring to the surface what has been enclosed in each of us since the dawn of time, which is being created in the image and likeness of God: you will be holy because I - the Lord your God - am holy [cf. The Pt 1,13-21; Lv 19,2; Is 11, 45]. And when we just seemed totally lost, God bursts again into the history of man in a real and physical way through the mystery of his incarnation; and through Jesus it is God himself who comes in person to rescue us, it is enough that through an act of free faith one accepts to go out to sea to cast the nets, to be caught by his grace and to be caught by his grace.

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It is the miracle of fishing: abandoned the shore with Jesus, cast the nets and fishing deeply, those men made their true image and likeness with the Eternal Creator re-emerge by re-establishing their communion with God and shortly after bringing the communion of God into the world.

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Faced with the miracle of fish, which is a miracle of faith and abandonment to God, Simon returns to having first of all the perception of good and evil, so much so as to tell Jesus: "Get away from me because I am a sinner". Faced with that awareness, Jesus fills Simon with grace and implicit forgiveness by answering him: "From now on you will be a fisher of men". That statement in itself implies: because you have had the goodness to follow my word and to leave the shore, to get offshore to fish out yourself e, with yourself, recover your Lord and Creator, so that I could perform the great miracle of faith on you.

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In today's Church, what is often lacking are not men to fish - who often would like to let themselves be caught, or who sometimes ask, they beg to be caught - perhaps what they lack are good fishermen. What then Our Lord Jesus Christ, beginning, center and ultimate end of our entire humanism, he in whom all things are recapitulated, those in heaven and on Earth, the visible ones and the invisible ones, head of the mystical body which is the Church ...[I Ef, prologue] may he always make us wise and holy fishers of men, with his grace and with the comfort and prayer of the good People of God. Never forgetting that in order to fish for men, first of all we must be real men, legitimate children of a God who became true man in all respects and by whom we freely and lovingly let ourselves be caught, to thus become true fishers of men.

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From the island of Patmos, 10 February 2019

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