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Homily stories

11 Jul 2021 - Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

My family and I were on a walk while at my parents’ cottage on a small lake in Southwest Michigan when we got a lesson about life. Around the bend in the lake we met an old couple sitting on rickety lawn chairs fishing. Their equipment consisted of a small, cheap tackle box, a plastic margarine container full of night crawlers, a five-gallon plastic bucket to hold their catch, and two long bamboo poles that carried their lines out beyond the shallows and seaweed. “How’s the fishing?” I asked. “Fantastic,” the man said, nodding to the bucketful of fish thrashing about in the shallow water. Across the road was a much larger lake where a fisherman was calling it quits. He was cranking his expensive bass boat onto his trailer. He wore a vest with about 27 pockets, each bulging with gear. He took six or seven fiberglass rods out of the boat and placed them in the back of his SUV, and then followed suit with two shiny multi-drawered tackle boxes and other gear. “Ain’t no damned fish in this lake,” he snarled as he gunned the engine, pulling his still-dripping boat up the boat ramp and onto the highway. The apostles were sent out into the world with just a single tunic and a walking stick. As fishers of people, despite their lack of fancy gear, they brought in quite a haul.

Authors Tom McGrath

fishing fishers of people

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Homily stories

22 Jan 2023 - Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Fishermen figure prominently in today’s gospel, and the fisher motif has been a favorite with religious artists ever since. Art imitates life, the saying goes, but sometimes, it seems, life imitates art. Morris West’s blockbuster novel, The Shoes of the Fisherman, was published in 1963. The Cold War story revolved around a bishop from a country controlled by the former Soviet Union who is elected pope and must confront a complex geopolitical landscape. Tensions and troubles in China threaten to erupt into a world war involving all the superpowers. After declaring the 1968 film version of the story to be one of his favorite movies, President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, opening up the once isolated country to East-West dialogue. Then in 1978 the College of Cardinals elected as pope a bishop from a Soviet dominated country—Karl Wojtyla of Kraków, Poland, who would become John Paul II. What does it mean to be “fishers of people”? Might it mean to try to live in such a way as to give others pause, to make them curious as to what it is that gives us our strength, or grace, or generosity, or joy, or whatever our particular spiritual gift might be? When we tend to and nourish our spiritual life, we give folks a reason to come a bit closer, to ask us about our faith, and—who knows—perhaps to be captivated by what they find!

Authors Daniel Grippo

fishermen fishers of people

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Homily stories

14 Jul 2024 - Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

My family and I were on a walk while at my parents’ cottage on a small lake in Southwest Michigan when we got a lesson about life. Around the bend in the lake we met an old couple sitting on rickety lawn chairs fishing. Their equipment consisted of a small, cheap tackle box, a plastic margarine container full of night crawlers, a five-gallon plastic bucket to hold their catch, and two long bamboo poles that carried their lines out beyond the shallows and seaweed. “How’s the fishing?” I asked. “Fantastic,” the man said, nodding to the bucketful of fish thrashing about in the shallow water. Across the road was a much larger lake where a fisherman was calling it quits. He was cranking his expensive bass boat onto his trailer. He wore a vest with about 27 pockets, each bulging with gear. He took six or seven fiberglass rods out of the boat and placed them in the back of his SUV, and then followed suit with two shiny multi-drawered tackle boxes and other gear. “Ain’t no damned fish in this lake,” he snarled as he gunned the engine, pulling his still-dripping boat up the boat ramp and onto the highway. The apostles were sent out into the world with just a single tunic and a walking stick. As fishers of people, despite their lack of fancy gear, they brought in quite a haul.

Authors Tom McGrath

fishers of people fishing simplicity

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